Wow. Just.. wow. This book was unlike any other I can recall reading, and the impression top of mind throughout it was how it so beautifully demonstrates the art of story telling. In fact, I'm considering finding the audiobook of it, because the story just begs to be told in an oral tradition. The book is written as a memoir of a woman who lived her whole life in either some degree of emotional or physical isolation, and the interspersion of her recollections with musings in the present was just done beautifully.

To that point of plotline, the premise was so interesting yet went in a totally unexpected direction, and I'm really pleasantly surprised how satisfied I felt with the story despite the consistent denials of answers. I'm typically one who needs every detail to be explained and accounted for, but this book is so deeply rooted in the narrators own fascinating blend of lack of concrete knowledge with singleminded perseverance and confidence despite that unknowing, that it felt like it seemingly transfered onto me. I can understand why to some this book was disconcerting and frustrating, but I just found it completely enthralling and, honestly, very calm (likely due to the narrators tone).

I know I'll be thinking on the more philosophical aspects of this book for a while to come, but I'll leave off with a few of my favorite quotes I encountered:

• "[The other woman] couldn't understand why someone would want knowledge that would be of no use to them."
• "Won't you go mad?" "I have no idea what you mean by madness." ... "You are the only one of us who belongs to this country." "No, this country belongs to me. I will be its sole owner and everything here will be mine."
• "The reader and I thus mingled will constitute something living, that will not be me, because I will be dead, and will not be that person as they were before reading, because my story, added to their mind, will then become part of their thinking."