Colm Tóibín - Long Island (Picador, 2024) ***½

In "Long Island", the story of Eilis, the main character from Tóibín's earlier novel "Brooklyn", picks up again some twenty years later. She lives in the same neighbourhood as the Italian family of her husband Tony, with two grown-up children. When she finds out that her husband has made a child with another woman, and that the husband of that woman wants to dump the baby on her, Ellis needs time to think and get her life back together. She takes a long trip back to Ireland, to visit her mother in the company of her children. Also in Ireland, things are more complicated and stressful than anticipated. 

Tóibín is an excellent writer, which he demonstrates here again. The story has a good pace, the characters are well-rounded and nuanced, the plot twist and situations interesting. It's entertaining and easy to read, but it lacks the power and emotional devastation of some of his other novels. It is moving, but not gripping like som of his other work. 
 

Christian Kracht - Eurotrash (Serpent's Tale, 2024) ****

The cover and the title of the book are somewhat deceptive. Yes, the story takes place in Switzerland, and it relates the story of a middle-aged Swiss man who picks up his mother for a trip around the country. The narrator - called Christian Kracht, so I assume it's somewhat autobiographical - has a hate/love relationship with his mother, not only due to the wealth that his (grand)-parents gathered, partly due to sympathy and collaboration with the Nazi's. He has no qualms about emptying his mother's bank account, and to use it on a spending spree on their road trip. His mother has been in psychatric care for a large part of her older life, and the trip acts as an endeavour to come to terms with his past as well as to reconcile with his mother before she will die. Furthermore, she has a stoma pouch which leads to further complications. 

The story is cynical and funny, primarily because the mother has her own kind of personality: direct, smart and brutal. A woman who no longer cares what people think of her. She drinks what she wants whenever she wants, and self-medicates at her heart's content. In the process of re-builing the mother-son relationship, the story gives a broad cultural picture of our times: novels, politics, economic inequality, the power of the media (his fater worked for Axel Springer of the publishing company with the same name).

The power balance between both characters shifts as the story unfolds. His initiative and relative dominance over his mother gradually shifts, and she takes gradually more control. She is not entirely who he thinks she is, and that is possibly one of the best parts of the book, next to the fact that it is very well written. It's also tightly composed, entertaining as well as relevant. 

 

Julian Baggini - How To Think Like A Philosopher (Granta, 2024) ****½

Excellent book on the clarity of thinking for philosophers. The title is somewhat misleading, in the sense that it gives the false impression that the book is addressed to a lay audience wishing to think like a philosopher, whereas the book is more written for philosphers or aspirant philosophers than for lay audiences. The content could be of interest to all of us in our daily lives, yet the book itself is full of references to philosophers and today's - mainly anglosaxon - community of philosophy, and as such primarily addressed to insiders of that community. 

His thoughts are refreshing, and especially on how to use philosophy in our everyday world, asking the right questions, making the goals of thought more important than the formal logic underlying it (which has of course its own limits), discussing things to come closer to the truth instead of winning the argument, being generous with your feelings when people make judgments because they may have formulated things not correctly, ...

I am happy that he makes a reference to Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", the book about which I wrote my Master's degree dissertation, and I agree that this book is much better than Pirsig's next book "Lila: an Inquiry into Morals". 

One of the more surprising facts in the book is the isolation of the philosopher in his or her thinking. He compares this to the more collective thinking in the East vs the "isolated islands" that individuals represent in the West. This may be true for philosophy, but in most other disciplines, whether research or corporate decision-making, collective reasoning with clear processes requiring expert input from various disciplines is the standard. It is odd that philosophy remains a kind of individual sport instead of a team sport.

I also like his balanced views on how to think: 

"Both gratuitious iconoclasm and slavish conformity are to be avoided. Just as we need to relinquish a sense of ownership of our ideas, we need to give up misguided feelings of loyalty to a particular thinker, theory or school. We need to be non-partisan. Reasoning well is not about taking sides". (p. 219)

At the end of the book, he adds a number of essential points: Attend, Clarify, Deconstruct, Connect. I give you a short view on "Clarify", because I think it essential to understand the value of uncertainty in the context of rational thought: 

"Time and again we find that the yearning for certainties, for universal validity, for principles that will cover all eventualities, turns out to be quixotic. Take the philosophy of science. Pretty much every scientist agrees that no description of 'the scientific method' captures all that scientists actually do. 'I'm sceptical that there can ever be a complete overarching theory [of sci­entific method] simply because science is about rationality,' says physicist Alan Sokal. 'Rationality is always adaptation to unforeseen circumstances - how can you possibly codify that?' Philosophers who believe they can fully prescribe the scientific method fail to recognise that 'the world is just extremely com- plicated.' They project their ways of thinking on to scientists so there is 'too much formal logic and too little reasoning that is close to what scientists actually do in practice'. Some are disappointed that a rational life leaves so much uncertain and so many loose ends. The dream of enlightenment turns out to be the reality of a bit less darkness. But disillusion is often the result of starting out expecting too much. A. C. Grayling says there is often a false assumption that 'If reason was so wonderful, things should be perfect.' No wonder that "hen things evidently aren't perfect, the conclusion drawn is that reason is not so wonderful" (p. 262)

One thing that disturbs me in his book, is the author's own prejudices and generalisations about industry. Without any evidence, he puts all pharmaceutical and food companies in the same basket of intentionally lying and robbing people of their money. Why this sloppy approach when he is so rigorous and open-minded on other topics? 

But let me end with a positive note. Almost everything Baggini writes and discusses is both excellent and useful. As he writes, thinging correctly is hard work: 

"If this sounds like hard work, that's because it is. Rigorous thinking is largely a matter of effort and application. We have evolved to be 'cognitive misers' using as little mental energy as we need to get us the next meal and the next offspring. It's easier not to think and if we must, it's more fun if we do so lacka­daisically, tossing off opinions around a boozy dinner table or spitting out hot takes on social media. No one is blameless, but there is an important difference between those who strive to do better and those who don't, those who push their intelligence to the limits and those who stay within them." (p. 277)

... and this makes his book all the more relevant. He summarises the key take-aways after every chapter, which makes it easy to return to when needed. Because everything he writes is so relevant for our daily struggles and the many mistakes in clear thinking we encounter in science, in policy-making, in journalism and other societal activities that it would be absolutely fantastic to write the same material for the lay person, and to integrate it in the curriculum of secondary schools. 

Elif Shafak - There Are Rivers In The Sky (Penguin, 2025) ****

Elif Shafak gets better by each book. "There Are Rivers In The Sky" brings the triple story over time and geography: Mesopotamia/Iraq/Turkey and London. The album starts in the realm of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian emperor, educated and cruel. A rare cuneiform lapis lazuli tablet and a raindrop are the recurring motives or red thread throughout the lives of the three protagonists: Arthur, living in the 19th Century, is a very poor and very intelligent young man, and his promise is luckily noticed by an archeologist of the British Museum. Narin, a young Yazidi girl, living with her father and grandmother near the Tigris on the border between Turkey and Iraq. Zaleekha, a young woman living in London in 2018, a hydrologist researcher who just separated from her husband. 

The waters of the sky, the Thames and the Tigris are recurring motives in the book, unifying the stories of the three protagonists, as is the lapis lazuli tablet with text from the Gilgamesh epic, and the 'lamassus', the huge sculptures that represent human, bird and lion. 

Elif Shafak's writing is brilliant, and alternates between epic descriptions, situational dialogue, historical/cultural facts and little pieces of wisdom or smart descriptions. 

The book starts like this, and it immediately made me laughing out loud for the beauty of the writing, the imagery and the epic value of nature. A majestic opening. 

"It is an early-summer afternoon in Nineveh, the sky swollen with impending rain. A strange, sullen silence has settled on the city: the birds have not sung since the dawn; the butterflies and dragon­flies have gone into hiding; the frogs have abandone_d their breeding grounds; the geese have fallen quiet, sensing danger. Even the sheep have been muted, urinating frequently, overcome by fear. The air smells different - a sharp, salty scent. All day, dark shadows have been amassing on the horizon, like an enemy army that has set up camp, gathering force. They look remarkably still and calm from a distance, but that is an optical illusion, a trick of the eye: the clouds are rolling steadily closer, propelled by a forceful wind, determined to drench the world and shape it anew. In this region where the summers are long and scorching, the rivers mercurial and unforgiv­ing, and the memory of the last flood not yet washed away, water is both the harbinger of life and the messenger of death" (p. 3)

Likewise, this introduction to the Thames was also worth mentioning: 

"Winter arrives early in London this year, and once it presents itself it does not wish to leave. (...) Ready for the cold spell, caterpillars and frogs gently allow themselves to freeze, content not to thaw until next spring. Prayers and profanities, as soon as they leave their speaker's mouths, form into icicles that dangle from the bare branches of trees. They tinkle sometimes in the wind, - a light, loose, jingling sound" (p. 20). 

The whole book is about the triangle of Arthur pulling himself up, despite all the odds against him, to become an explorer and archeologist, the devastating story of Narin, who wants to live and whose life is in danger for the simple reason that she is a Yazidi girl. And Zaleekha who is uncertain, who lives between worlds, torn between the Middle-East and the West, struggling with her identity, her family, her future and her feelings.  

"She was silent when she should have spoken; she spoke when she should have been silent. Either way, guilt is her most loyal companion" (p. 205)

I'll give some more excerpts, starting with the most gruesome: the horror of humanity which is omnipresent in the novel. It is a dialogue between young Narin and her grandmother: 

"'Well, this-world is a school and we are its students. Each of us studies something as we pass through. Some people learn love, kindness. Others, I'm afraid, abuse and brutality. But the best stu­dents are those who acquire generosity and compassion from their encounters with hardship and cruelty. The ones who choose not to inflict their suffering on to others. And what you learn is what you take with you to your grave.' 

 'Why so much hatred towards us?' 

'Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire - because they want to have them in their possession. It's all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It's all out of fear! Then there is the third kind - when people hate those they have hurt. 

But why?' 

'Because the tree remembers what the axe forgets.' 

'What does that mean?' 

'It means it's not the harmer who bears the scars, but the one who has been harmed. For us, memory is all we have. If you want to know who you are, you need to learn the stories of your ancestors. Since time immemorial, the Yazidis have been mis­understood, maligned, mistreated. Ours is a history of pain and persecution. Seventy-two times we have been massacred. The Tigris turned red with our blood, the soil dried up with our grief­and they still haven't finished hating us.' (p. 43)

Or the following: 

"Remember though, what defies comprehension isn't the mysteries of the world, but the cruelties that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other". (p. 222) 

Shafak's nature is alive, even the immaterial things: the stones speak, water has memory, the same drop of water falls on the heads of different characters.  

  "For too long the Londoners have been saying that the river is a silent murderer. But Arthur understands that it is, actually, the other way round. It is humans who are killing the water" (p. 158)

"It scares Arthur, travelling by river (on the Tigris). The vessel sways, its timbers creaking under the pressure, and it unsettles him, the velocity of the flow, foaming with wrath. Along the way he spots destitute villages. Poverty has a topography all of its own. It rises from the ribs of the earth, stretching its naked limbs against the sky, its features dry and gaunt, sore to the touch. Poverty is a nation with no borders, and he is no foreigner in it but a native son." (p. 312)

Despite all the horror of humanity, there is hope: the individuals who manage to rise above their situation, despite their limitations and their vulnerabilities. But they are kind and generous, which gives us a feeling that not everything is lost, that there are possibilities for better, even in small efforts.  

"Grandma loves the strong tea from Russia, which she drinks with a cube of sugar squeezed between her teeth. She says if you drink tea this way, the words you speak will be sweeter" (p. 140)

It's an excellent book, one that I loved reading: smart, entertaining, captivating, and highly relevant for our time. If I have to give to things that I liked less, these two come to mind. First, the stylistic power of her writing diminishes as the novel progresses, not unlike her previous novel. Second, the little recurring motives are a little too programmatic and gimmicky for me. 

Yet I can highly recommend it. 

Lucas Bracco - A World Of Fallacies (Prometheus, 2023) ***

I have always been a keen fan of formal and informal logic. Every single day, you can hear and read people with high functions in politics, goverment, industry or other influential places to say things are logically incorrect. When debating their points, they easily fall back on an ingroup vs outgroup position, or claiming that they have other views on society, even if these responses are beside the point, because my comment had nothing to do with the content of their utterances, but everything with the technical aspects of reasoning. 

Lists of all fallacies exist, on Wikipedia, or the Cognitive Bias Codex with its great visual representation. 

This little book is also of interest, with a lot of quotes from everyday life to explain why some statements and reasonings are biased or wrong. Many of the fallacies presented were familiar to me, so I assume the book is more addressed to people without prior knowledge, although I wonder if any of them would spend money on a book on the topic. Nevertheless, it's an nice introduction. 

I never understood why logic is not part of our education system, since it is essential for critical thinking in everyday life, for policy and for science. It appears so vital for the quality of our society and democracy. 

 

Richard Whatmore - The End Of Enlightenment (Allen Lane, 2023) ****

In the back cover I read: "Richard Whatmore carefully reconstructs the historical context (of the Englightenment) and presents it as a powerful echo chamber for our own troubled times", and "This intellectually exhilarating book is particularly relevant today, when liberal democracy us facing new dangers, which threaten to drag us back into the darkness once more". These quotes gave me the wrong idea that Whatmore would make the link between 18th century enlightenment philosophy and liberal democracy today. 

That is not the case. He reviews the - primarily British - Enlightenment thinkers such as Hume, Shelburne, Macaulay, Gibbon, Burke, Brissot, Paine and finally Mary Wollstonecraft, all the subject of a chapter each. Whatmore explains the context for their philosophies and ideas, their reception, and the ensuing debates in the historical setting of the French Revolution, the American constitution and other political game-changers. 

Despite all the years of philosophy at university, and my subsequent reading of philosophy books, this book requires quite some knowledge to grasp everything and is clearly written for specialists, rather than for the interested lay person like myself. 

The real references to our time only come at the end of the book, which is aptly called "And By Confusion Stand": 

"The assumotion is that eighteenth century authrs, would, if they were beamed across time into the present, recognize and appreciate that many of their hopes and dreams about politics had been realized. They would praise the creation of democracies defending human rights. They would applaud the extent of toleration and the break­up of empire, even if the latter had been largely within living memory. They might accept that war remained part of the human condition, but the extent of social and technological progress would no doubt overwhelm them. Many of our intellectuals would seek to congratulate their ancestors on establishing the foundations of our world: many global traditions of revolution, we might tell them, can be charted from their historical moment, and so too can tradi­tions of gradual reform, the basis of breathtaking technological and social progress that deserves to be lauded" (p. 310)

"Those battling to prevent the end of enlightenment worried about the loss of cultural diversity, the loss of alternative political or economic systems, and the identification of happiness with the 

ever-growing consumption of luxury goods. They worried that their own world was a return to the past: to times of division, tur­bulence, sacrifice, war and death. Enlightenment figures saw what we call modern politics largely in religious terms, with politicians in free states presenting themselves as latter-day priests. They were concerned that fanatics had won the day, with enthusiasm the most powerful force in social intercourse. Political puritanism, they believed, had defeated enlightenment". (p. 312)

Indeed, I am one of those baffled and perplexed citizens who follow what's happening in the world almost by the minute, shocked by the lack of fact-based rationality, of social and legal justice, of human rights and the freedom of speech. We are witnessing a regression into darkness, with intolerance, brutal nationalism, imperialism and greed running politics. If only for this reason, every little brick that can help to bring society a step closer to real Enlightenment is welcome. Whatmore gave us the foundations again.

 

Jacqueline Harpman - Moi Qui N'ai Pas Connu Les Hommes (Stock, 1995-2025) ***

Apparently this novel gets some attention now that it's been translated to English as "I Who Have Never Known Men", which led to this re-issue in French too. The author was born in in 1929, the same year as my father, and like her, we are also born in Etterbeek, the same commune of Brussels, so there was some personal interest on my part to read this book. 

It's the story of 40 women who live in a cage, guarded by men, deep underground. The narrator is the youngest of them, and she has no recollection of what happened to bring them there, nor has she any notion of the context. The place and the time are not described, but we can assume it's sometime in the future. Early on, the guards leave in a hurry when the alarms go off, and the women manage to leave the cage, only to surface on an endless desert-like landscape with few reference points or signs of life, human or other. 

They gather some food and water and set out for the unknown. I will not go into further detail to avoid disclosing too much of the plot. 

When asked what the purpose of their existence is, the following dialogue ensues: 

"-      Les hommes, petite, c' etait être en vie. Que sommes-nous, sans avenir, sans descendance? Les derniers maillons d'une chaine cassée. 

- La vie donnait done tellement de plaisir?

- Tu as si peu idée de ce qu' était avoir un destin que tu ne peux pas comprendre ce qu'il en est d'être dépourvues au point où nous le sommes. Regarde notre façon de vivre : nous savons qu'il faut faire comme si c' était le matin car ils augmentent l' éclairage, puis ils nous passent la nourriture et à un moment donné les lumières baissent. Nous ne sommes même pas sures qu'ils nous fassent vivre sur un rythme de vingt-quatre heures, comment mesurerions-nous le temps ? Ils nous ont réduites au dénuement absolu." (p.61)

What is life without any future, any past, any action, any plans, any joy, there is not even a sense of time since the women live by the rhythm of the artificial light in the cave.  

The story is dark, dystopian, depressing. There seems to be no hope for the women, despite all their efforts. It's worth reading because of the coherence in the narrative, its singular plot and setting. The story is sufficiently strong to hold a mirror to the reader about his own life, and the sense of direction we have with all connections and perspectives. 

On the downside, there are a lot of contradictions or narrative problems. There is no reason why the main character suddenly starts asking questions when the narrative begins, as if she - like the reader - had never been in this place before. It's also bizarre that when they reach a river, the women do not decide to follow the river downstream, as this would be the easiest tactic to encounter other people, and to have drinking water at all times. 

Anyway, I will be generous in my comments. It's worth reading, and definitely a memorable novel. 

Philippe Claudel - Quelques-uns Des Cents Regrets (Stock, 2005) ***½

When his mother dies, the narrator returns to the place where he grew up, a small town in the north of France flooded by a rising river. During the three days he spends there, he is reminded of the figures that have disappeared: his mother, of course, whom he once loved more than anything else, and the more disturbing figure of his absent father, who, according to legend, died in a distant war.

In his youth, a photo on the bedroom wall in an aviator's uniform evoked the missing hero. But one day the family legend collapsed: the teenager discovered that his mother had lied to him about this mysterious father. He left home suddenly. He was only sixteen. Now that is mother is dead, he returns full of grief and unresolved emotions. 

He talks to the few locals, trying to recreate and understand his own past. In his typical sensitive style, Philippe Claudel takes us by the hand to scrape away layer upon layer of unknown aspects in the narrator's life, with the precision and care of an archeologist, with the big difference that as he digs deeper into the past, the emotional weight starts shifting. He came for the funeral of his mother, more as a formality as the only son, yet gradually he starts to understand his past a little better. 

The overall atmosphere of melancholy and sadness is possibly the novel's greatest strength. Everything in the old village is a shadow of former times, the people who stayed are old and cannot go anywhere, the sense of desolation and decay is everywhere. 

Hannah Arendt - The Freedom To Be Free (Penguin Books, 2018) ***

In this little book, actually a compilation of three lectures, philosopher Hannah Arendt explores the value of freedom. She distinguishes throughout the lectures on various forms of freedom, negative freedom (to be free from oppression, to be free from want, to be free from fear) and positive freedom (to be free to participate in democratic society). 

Even if I can appreciate her conclusions and general vision on freedom, the way she presents it, with little evidence or substantiation other than what other philosophers wrote on the topic, makes it a little old-fashioned, while the subject is of course very relevant in today's context. Many of her statements are just statements, without any link to earlier premises and without connection to earlier steps in her reasoning. Or sentences such as : "Where everyone does the same, nobody acts in freedom, even when nobody is directly coerced or compelled" are hard to understand without any examples. A counter-example could be a rave party for instance. Why would the dancers not act in freedom? 

Nevertheless, despite the somewhat aged style and the lack of substantiation - it is after all just a lecture and not a scientific article - her thoughts remain of interest in today's world, where freedom is still far from being achieved for the large majority of the population, and certainly not the freedom to be free. 

Juan Carlos Onetti - De Werf (Meulenhoff, 1978) ***½

Ik heb me blind gezocht naar een Engelse vertaling van dit boek van de Uruguyaanse schrijver Juan Carlos Onetti, maar die zijn niet meer betaalbaar tweedehands, en niet meer beschikbaar als nieuw exemplaar. Na lang zoeken, heb ik toch een Nederlandstalige versie gevonden.

"El Astillero" (1961) is een aangrijpende verkenning van existentiële thema's aan de hand van het verhaal van de antiheld Larsen, die na een ballingschap van vijf jaar terugkeert naar het fictieve gebied Santa Maria. 

De roman beschrijft zijn vergeefse pogingen om weer aanzien te krijgen door een betekenisloze rol aan te nemen als algemeen directeur van een vervallen scheepswerf die eigendom is van de ongrijpbare Jeremias Petrus. Larsens dagelijks bestaan wordt gekenmerkt door een gevoel van verval en ontgoocheling terwijl hij zich vastklampt aan de hoop om de scheepswerf nieuw leven in te blazen, ondanks de schijnbare irrelevantie en het ontbreken van functioneel personeel. Interacties met verschillende personages, waaronder de geestelijk gehandicapte dochter van Petrus en cynische collega's, benadrukken thema's als misleiding, zelfbedrog en de absurditeit van de menselijke conditie.

Niemand heeft enig respect voor de ander in dit verhaal. Larsen werkt gratis, hopend op een deel van de inkomsten als hij de scheepswerf weer financieel vlot trekt, maar die werf is niet meer te redden volgens de boekhouder en ingenieur die er vreemd genoeg nog rondhangen, en regelmatig materiaal verkopen om nog een bron van inkomsten te hebben. Larsen is laf, net zoals de meeste andere personages. Ze zijn kleingeestig, inhalig, en wat ze doen lijkt volledig nutteloos in hun kleine universum. Echte communicatie is er niet, laat staan dat ze een gemeenschappelijk doel hebben. Een plot zonder karakters waarmee de lezer zich kan vereenzelvigen, lijkt het beste recept voor een slecht boek, maar Onetti slaagt erin om deze klip toch te omzeilen, vooral dan door zijn elegante - maar iets ouderwetse - stijl en door het algemeen gevoel van totale bevreemding en machteloosheid tegen een vaak niet te begrijpen realiteit. Vrolijk is het allemaal niet, maar wel intrigerend. Enkele voorbeelden: 

"Schor, gesmoord en weinig overtuigend klonk driemaal ach­tereen een misthoom op de rivier. Larsen tastte in zijn zakken naar sigaretten, maar hij had niet de kracht zich te ontdoen van de natte jas die om hem heen plakte en hem bedwelmde met z'n trieste, laffe geur, z'n stank naar een kater en naar ver­schraalde lotions uit eindeloos weerspiegelde kapsalons die mis­schien al jaren waren afgebroken en hoe dan ook irreeel ge­worden waren. Ineens vermoedde hij wat iedereen vroeg of laat beseft: dat hij de enige levende mens was in een wereld vol schimmen, dat communicatie onmogelijk en niet eens wenselijk was, dat medelijden niets meer waard was dan haat, dat ver­draagzame afschuw en half respecterende, half zinnelijke par­ticipatie het enige was wat een mens kon verlangen en moest geven." (blz. 96)

"Daarom moet Larsen, toen hij het plein dwars was over­gestoken, af en toe even in de motregen en wind zijn blijven staan om met verbazing, afschuw en onbeschrijflijke opwin­ding tot de ontdekking te komen dat het feit dat de werf een complete, oneindig geisoleerde, autonome wereld geworden was, het bestaan van de andere wereld, waarin hij nu liep en zelfs ooit gewoond had, niet uitsloot" (blz. 100)

Dit zijn misschien enkele frappante voorbeelden, maar zo is ongeveer het hele boek. Je vraagt je af waar het allemaal om gaat, je voelt de verlatenheid, de uitzichtloosheid, de zinloosheid van wat er gebeurt in elke zin. En naast het creëren van deze bevreemdende sfeer, houdt Onetti dit gevoel aan doorheen het boek. 

Het zoeken waard. 

 

Stefaan Top - Volksverhalen uit Vlaams-Brabant (Het Spectrum, 1982) ***

Op een rommelmarkt gevonden en gekocht, samengesteld door Prof. Stefaan Top, hoogleraar Volkskunde aan de KULeuven, van wie ik ooit les had kunnen hebben, maar niet gedaan heb. Het boekje bevat meer dan honderd verhalen die zijn opgetekend uit de mond van ouderen - soms zelfs genoteerd zoals uitgesproken - maar velen ook uit oude teksten. Het zijn sprookjes, straffe verhalen, religieuze gebeurtenissen, sagen en legenden. 

De term "Vlaams Brabant" moet zeer ruim worden geïnterpreteerd: er zijn verhalen uit Leuven, Overijse, Schaarbeek, maar ook uit Ninove. Enkele voorbeelden: 

Van den man, die zingen moest

Arjaan moest den kelder van Mijnheer Pastoor witten.  De pastoor dacht bij zichzelf: Ik moet zorgen, dat hij van mijn wijn afblijft.  'Arjaan,' zei de pastoor, 'ge moet zingen, terwijl ge werkt. Dan gaat het goed vooruit!' 

En Arjaan trok den kelder in en zong, dat heel de pastorij er van dreunde, eerst al zijn liedjes uit de jongelingsjaren, dan de kerkzangen en ten slotte de mis der overledenen. 

Zoo had hij reeds verscheidene uren al zingende in den kelder doorgebracht, zonder een enkele minuut te zwijgen. 

Toen hij aan 't slot der mis gekomen was, ging hij over 't baar­kleed zingen: 

'Pater noster ... ' klonk het plechtig, en Arjaan zweeg. 

'Nu drinkt hij,' zei de pastoor.

Van een Vrouwken, dat alleen woonde

De man was dood en begraven, en luttel tijd daarna bracht de pastoor aan de weduwe een bezoek. 

En om haar te troosten sprak hij over den Hemel en over de eeuwige rust, welke heur man daar genoot. 

En nog, vrouw lief,' zei de goede pastoor 'gij moet eens denken op onzen God, op Kristus, die voor ons gestorven is .. .' Is die brave man ook al dood?' steende het vrouwken. 'Ja, wij weten toch van niets: wij wonen hier ook zoo alleen.

Sinter-Wijen als peerdeknecht

Sinter-Wijen, patroon van Anderlecht, was eerst peerdeknecht in die gemeente. Al het brood dat hij voor zijne peerden mede­nam naar 't veld, deelde hij uit aan de arme lieden. Dat was den eigenaar ter oore gekomen, en op zekeren dag trok hij naar 't veld bij zijn knecht, ten einde zich met eigen oogen te over­tuigen of Guido werkelijk het brood der peerden durfde wegge­ven. Toen Guido hem zag afkomen was hij heel en al uit zijn lood geslagen, en, in zijn schrik, raapte hij haastig eenige aard­kluiten op en stak ze in het broodzakje der peerden. En zie, de meester ging regelrecht op het broodzakje af, en vond het gevuld met brood. 

Deze korte vertelsels als voorbeeld van wat de lezer kan verwachten. Interessante lektuur, een leuke inkijk in de cultuur van onze voorouders, maar ons niveau van humor is - gelukkig - toch nogal wat geëvolueerd, net zoals het plezier in de spot te drijven met de goedgelovigheid van andere mensen. Alhoewel, misschien is het nu wel allemaal een stuk brutaler. 

 

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (Penguin, 2006) ***

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a philosopher. He wrote his "Meditations" on an almost daily basis while campaigning somewhere in his empire. His personal musings on life were never intended for publication, but eventually they were bundled into the 12 books that became the "Meditations". 

His philosophy is stoic - sobriety, humility, courage, strength of character, the power of reason. His meditations are also influenced by the naturaly philosophy of the Greeks, with a cosmic perspective on the broad universe and the tiny atoms that make all things. The relativity of human life is one of his key topics as well as the need to live a rational and moral life. Many of his sentences raise questions more than answering them. And often they are messages to himself: instructions on how to live. Some examples: 

• "No more roundabout discussion of what makes a good man. Be one!"
• "Keep constantly in your mind an impression of the whole of time and the whole of existence - and the thought that each individual thing is, on the scale of existence, a mere fig-seed, on the scale of time, one turn of a drill". 
• What dies does not pass out of the universe. If it remains here and is changed, then here too it is resolved into the everlasting constituents, which are the elements of the universe and of you yourself. These too change, and make no complaint of it. 
• 'If you want to be happy', says Democritus, 'do little.' May it not be better to do what is necessary, what the reason of a naturally social being demands, and the way reason demands it done? This brings the happiness both of right action and of little action. Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: 'Is this, or is it not, something necessary?' And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also: then no redundant actions either will follow".
• Either an ordered universe, or a stew of mixed ingredients, yet still coherent order. Otherwise how could a sort of private order subsist within you, if there is disorder in the Whole? Especially given that all things, distinct as they are, nevertheless permeate and respond to each other."

Even if many of his reflections are outdated, many are equally still fresh today, with practical or spiritual questions that are worthy of thought for us now. In that sense, his "Meditations" are more than just a historical report of what the emperor wrote, but also still meaningful for people living today. 

That the book is not meant to be read as a whole, will be quickly obvious to the reader: there are endless repetitions on the same or similar thoughts. There is obviously no structure or build-up, let alone a coherent essay on his philosophy.  So it should be seen as a resource for little ideas to read and juggle with once in a while. 

Jean-Paul Van Bendegem - Abecedarium (Houtekiet, 2025) ***

Een beminnelijk en luchtig boekje over denken in onze tijd, over contradicties, paradoxen, wiskunde en humor. Elke letter van ons alfabet is een insteek voor filosoof Jean-Paul Van Bendeghem om ons aan het denken te zetten, vaak met frisse ideeën van hemzelf, of weetjes uit onze geschiedenis of feiten uit onze realiteit. Licht verteerbaar en met humor gebracht. Het boekje is een bundeling van teksten die oorspronkelijk in De Geus zijn verschenen. Een heerlijk tussendoortje. 

Álvaro Enrigue - You Dreamed Of Empires (Vintage, 2025) ****

Once in a while you come across books that are exceptional. This is one of them. It describes the encounter between Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his arrival in Tenochtitlan, visiting Aztec emperor Moctezuma. The Spanish crew and the Aztecs are at a complete loss on how to interact. The Spanish are welcomed by the Aztecs, are bewildered by some of their customs, and it is the same with the Aztecs. One fine example is the Aztec habit to keep a bunch of flowers in front of their nose, which they do as an antidote for the terrible stench of the Spanish men. 

Álvaro Enrigue invents the whole story of course, based on very limited historical data of the real initial encounter. The Spanish are allowed access to the labyrintine palace of the emperor and Moctezuma himself gets lost in his addiction to halucinogenic substances that should help design his decisions. The whole novel describes this unreal world of misunderstandings and total bafflement, not only between Spanish and Aztecs, but also within each camp there are controversies, differences and misunderstandings. 

"Atotoxtli smiled. Neither of you has a clue about anything, she said, but Moctezuma doesn't either, so we're all equal. She looked at the cihuacoatl as if he were a foolish child. You're his only friend, the only person in the world who doesn't want what he's got, she said; he took you out of the game to get the priests off your back; he's doing what he thinks he must, but not saying anything, like the ant." (p. 157)

"The cihuacoatl grimaced. I should worry, shouldn't I? Cuauhtemoc shrugged. I asked the shaman, and he said maybe not, because Moctezuma nearly fell over laughing when he gave the mes­sage to be delivered, but he also said that maybe you should, because the emperor was swimming in slides. Tlilpotonqui felt his chin and said: So be it. Then he added, so as not to be left wondering: What about the Tlaxcalteca? The general could hear that the question had the ring of the last wish of a con­demned man, whether Tlilpotonqui was one or not, so he told him the truth. They're still divided: the young lords want to come to an agreement, but the old ones aren't sure; they won't do anything until Moctezuma has spoken to El Malinche. Whatever for? asked Tlilpotonqui. I don't understand it, the general said; they're like the emperor, they think the Caxtilteca are important; it's a mystery. The cihuacoatl rolled his eyes and went back to his grandchildren." (p. 178)

Nobody knows how to proceed. Nobody seems to know who is even in charge at times. Moctezuma's sister and wife Atotoxli plays a key role in all this, working on her own agenda. The emperor, mostly undecisive and drugged, is mesmerised by the horses of the Spanish, and the Spanish are only interested in obtaining power over the land, obtaining riches and slaves in the process. 

The quality of Enrigue's writing is exceptional, as is his imagination for funny story-telling and comic situations, as when Cortés and Moctezuma compare the lives of their gods with each other. After a while to - again - misunderstand each other, assuming that the Greek language and Xleek are the same, and Moctezuma offers hallucinogenic cacti to Cortés so that they can speak with each other without translators. 

Moctezuma gets some hallucinations which allow him to hear - and appreciate - rock music from the 20th century (T-Rex!), Cortés has a vision of the future of Mexico including Eufemio Zapata. Absurd. Enrigue's fantasy rotates around what might have happened in these few days of their first encounter, inventing situations and stories around his main characters. He is funny. 

"Friar Geronimo never attended the religious services held by the chaplain, though he lived like a priest in every sense of word. He was always praying, he spoke Latin and Greek, he was learned in church doctrine, he refused to wear military garb, he slept, ate and drank as austerely as a Carmelite, and he only bedded handsome youths." (p. 65)

Álvaro Enrigue has written a novel that is extremely unique as a reading experience. At times all the Aztec names and words demand some effort, but that adds to the fun of reading. Like Cortés and Moctezuma, you will be in for a strange experience, one of bizarre interactions, absurd and surreal, of light-footed cruelty, deceptive scheming, dreamlike sequences, and funny situations. Unreal.

Gerwin van der Werf - De Krater (Stichting CNPB, 2025) **

"De Krater" is het Boekenweekgeschenk van 2025. Het brengt het verhaal van twee broers en een zus die heel verschillend zijn. Benjamin is een astronomie nerd, zijn oudere broer Johnny eerder een losbol en Eden is ergens tussen hen beiden in. Om Benjamin uit zijn depressieve gedachten te trekken, rijden ze naar Duitsland, waar ooit een meteoriet een diepe krater heeft geslagen. De jongeren hebben geen idee van afstand en weinig geld, maar ze gaan toch zonder al te veel na te denken op stap.

In een interview zegt de auteur: "Het persoonlijke zit ‘m verder vooral in de gedachtenwereld van die jongeren: alledrie staan ze dicht bij de mijne. Vind ik dit leven eigenlijk wel leuk? Is dit de moeite waard? Dat zijn de vragen die mijn personages zich stellen. Ik worstel daar zelf natuurlijk geregeld mee, en zie dat bij meerdere jongeren, dus het is belangrijk dat we die vragen stellen en het daarover hebben met vrienden, familie en lotgenoten. Het zijn of niet zijn van Hamlet heeft me altijd wel beziggehouden.”

Het is een fijn boekje. 

Lize Spit - De Eerlijke Vinder (Stichting CNPB, 2023) **

"De Eerlijke Vinder" is een mooi verhaal van vriendschap tussen Jimmy, een Vlaams jongetje en Tristan, zijn Kosovaarse buur, van wie het gezin na de asielprocedure wordt uitgewezen. Dit Boekenweekgeschenk uit 2023 is gebaseerd op waar gebeurde feiten. 

Het leest vlot. Is goed geschreven. Ontroerend. Maar niet echt baanbrekend. 

Richard Dawkins - The Genetic Book Of The Dead (Head Of Zeus, 2024) ****½

Richard Dawkins writing purely about our biology and the impact of evolution, without any attacks on religion. This is new territory for me, and this book is a treat. Dawkins "Book of the Dead" has nothing to do with the Tibetan or Egyptian "books of the dead". This one is about how we can trace back some of the characteristics of animals to their genetic origins, including the environments in which they lived and evolved. 

How camouflage evolved in some animals, how some animals evolved to land and returned to the see, how eye-sight changed and developed, ... He gives hundreds of bizarre and quite exceptional behaviour in animals that become easy to understand once Dawkins explains what has or might have happened in the genetic archives of the species. He also explained how different species developed similar characteristics independently from each other. He does this with layman's language, with sufficient science to make it interesting, but still focused on delivering a text that many without a scientific education can read without any problem. And to his credit, he also comes with quite a number of "scientific intuitions" or theories on what needs further exploration. 

The book is nicely illustrated by Jana Lenzová and contains a wealth of pictures. 

Apart from the interesting subject itself, Dawkins's enthusiasm and wonder about our living world makes it an even easier to recommend book. 

Dahlia de la Cerda - Reservoir Bitches (Scribe, 2025) ***½

Wild, honest, brutal, bloody, cruel, sensitive, fast-paced, funny. "Reservoir Bitches" tells the interconnected stories of thirteen women from their own personal perspective and tone of voice. There is the daughter of the drug lord, her friend, a prostitute, a murder victim, ... They tell their stories like short narratives, presented in the first person, in a very direct style, without any descriptions or context, just like a young woman would recite events if asked to give a testimonial. 

"I became pregnant and gave birth twice. Both times I felt like a sinner because my children were not the fruits of love but of violence and degenerate sex. I baptized them Adam and Eve.

The Old Testament says that the Lord reveals himself to his servants in different ways - for example, as the scent of myrrh or as fire, like he did with Moses and the burning bush. The message was always the same: "Your prayer has been heard". Every night, as I prayed, I begged God to free me from my hushband. "'Our Father in heaven. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done. Abba father, I know your will is for your daughter to be treated like lillies and caressed with fine linen here on earth. Adonai, take this chalice from me, and let it not be my will but yours". In my prayers, I only ever asked for one thing: to be a widow. God never revealed himself to me, but He did answer my prayers: five years from the day the holy sacrament of marriage was profaned, meaning from the day I was wed, the man I was forced to call my husband came home drowning in alcohol and fell asleep in the living room. As I watched him snore like a beast I prayed even more fervently to God. My prayers were heard. Vomit trickled from his mouth, smelling of liquor. I dropped to the floor with tears in my eyes and prayed he would choke. ''Dear Lord, let the walls of Jericho fall before my eyes, throw off my shackles and drag this man to the gates of Hell. Give me victory over my enemy, knock down the walls of my prison and the fortresses that cast down my heart. Like David before Jehovah, I danced and danced and rejoiced as I watched Efrain's face darken from red to purple. Then, to the sound of trumpets, I confirmed that he was dead. My spirit glorified and praised the seed of Abraham who crushed the head of the serpent. I called an ambulance and after the mandated autopsy, had him cremated. I did this so there would be no body to rise among the dead on Judgment Day." (p.91)

What's not to like about this? It is straight from the heart, and whatever the wealth or education level of her characters, De la Cerda manages to create a unique voice and style for each of her female protagonists. It's a pleasure to read, even if the subject matter is at times very cruel. The stories of the thirteen women are obviously not representative for the overall situation of women in Mexico, yet they are taken from the brutal reality that exists nonetheless. 

Javier Marías - Tomás Nevinson (Penguin, 2024) *****

Another brilliant book by Javier Marías, his last and final novel before his death last year. Marías's prose will not be to everyone's liking: it is slow, repetitive, with a lot of rephrasing, and re-thinking the same topics and issues, looking at them from different sides and perspectives, sometimes touching on something concrete and actionable, but more often than not remaining vague and tentative, approaching reality with a default position of uncertainty and a wide array of possibilities, both as explanations of the past as well as options for the future. 

The lead character is Tomás Nevinson, who we already met in his "Berta Isla" novel, a British/Spanish undercover agent, who gets recruited again by MI6 to go back in service and leave his job at the British embassy in Madrid. His role is to become a teacher in the Basque Region, with the goal to eliminate a female ETA terrorist. The problem is that three women living in the city could be the terrorist, and could also be none of them. Nevinson has to find out and kill the right one. The British secret service gives him the ultimatum that if he is not able to kill the right one, as a measure of precaution all three will be killed. 

Javier Marías's slow prose considers and reconsiders the options, the moral and ethical aspects of his situation and role, he tries to uncover the real truth behind the deceptive characters of the three women, as a kind of mirror for his own duplicity, wondering what is real and what is false, what is truthful or fake. It is also a psychological thriller, deeply carving into the weird situation of the protagonist to act full-time as a fake person, pretending to be what he is not, living the life of a non-existent person with the sole purpose of killing someone else. This duality is what his supervisor uses as the argument to lure him back into the service: to be part of some of the bigger geopolitical happenings, or to be outside of this, and be considered as a nobody who's no longer part of the system. If he wants to be part of the system, he has to relinquish his real self and live the unreal life of teacher Miguel Centurión. He is the non-existent Somebody or the existent Nobody. Either way, he is trapped. 

"'After having been Someone,' he added, 'it's very difficult to go back to being no one. Even if that Someone was invisible and almost no one would recognize him" (p. 51)

This requires of course to be able to disappear in one life, and to create another, fictitious one, with all its challenges: 

"Any­one in hiding, though, if she's smart, must appear to be the opposite of - or as far removed from - what she was and possibly still is. I know from personal experience how difficult this is, and I have, on occasion, allowed my real or my old me to resurface, or have some­times aroused suspicions by not totally rejecting the old me: one's natural tendency is to discourage or avert misfortunes when what you should be doing is fomenting and even precipitating them." (p. 249) 

The reason and the motivation for all these actions is of course to eliminate evil. 

'Cruelty is contagious. Hatred is contagious. Faith is contagious ... It can turn into fanaticism at the speed of light .. .' Now his tone was part assertive, part recollective. 'That's why those attitudes are so dangerous, because they're hard to stop. Before you know it, they've spread like wildfire. That was one of the very first things we were taught, that you need to spot the initial symptoms and nip them in the bud. (...) 'Madness is contagious. Stupidity is contagious,' he said, complet­ing the list. 

I remembered that list very well, I had all too often found out how very accurate it was. People adopt a faith and grow, first, very ser­ious, then very solemn. They start to believe everything their faith embraces and involves, and then they become stupid. If contradicted, they fly into a rage, they won't accept you calling them stupid or challenging what has suddenly become their all-in-all and their raison d'etre. From that point on, they develop a purely defensive, irrational hatred of anyone who doesn't share their fanaticism. And they treat anyone who openly opposes it with great cruelty. Once they discover cruelty, they embrace it and pass it on to others, and it takes a long time for them to grow weary of putting their cruelty into practice" (p. 104)

The narrator tries to look at his choice to eliminate the alleged terrorist from all possible angles, trying to justify, to rationalise and to question the approach at the same time. 

"They had chosen to help the people they were helping or hide the people they were hid­ing, or serve the cause they were serving and to dedicate themselves to whatever they were dedicated to, although they had sometimes been duped or hypnotized into doing so, as had many inexperienced men. The woman I was charged with uncovering and identifying in that town in the north-west, whichever one of the three she turned out to be, had been responsible for massacres and should pay for that. Or if not 'should', it would be appropriate that she did. Or if not 'appropriate', since she no longer presented any danger and had turned around her unhappy life, it would be best to interrupt that life just in case, and because we were by our nature avengers. If we weren't, who would be, in this forgetful world?  

Tupra was right: hatred was an emotion unknown to us, but we were the archive; the record, the ones who never forgot what every­one else forgets out of weariness or so as not to wallow in bitterness. I don't know if he realized it, but the words he had spoken made us - with all our human, mortal limitations - rather like the God of all those past centuries of belief, or should that be credulity: the God who retained and stored away everything in his motley, moveless time, in which nothing was new or old, remote or recent. 'For us, what happened ten years ago is yesterday or even today, and is hap­pening right now.' This is how that God - now outmoded, but very much a force to be reckoned with for most of recorded history-must have regarded everything. That's why he forgave nothing, for that really wasn't in his remit, for in his eyes no crime has an expiry date or grows less heinous, they are all simultaneous, and all persist. There was, though, another motive behind my decision to return to active service, to accept this mission: the only way not to question the usefulness of what you have done in the past is to keep doing the same thing; the only justification for a murky, muddy existence is to continue to muddy it; the only justification for a long-suffering life is to perpetuate that suffering, to tend it and nourish it and complain about it, just as a life of crime is only sustainable if you persevere as a criminal, if villains persist in their villainy and do harm right left and centre, first to some and then to others until no one is left untouched. 

Terrorist organizations cannot give in voluntarily, because if they do, an abyss opens up before them, they see themselves retrospect­ively and are horrified by their annulment, and therefore their ruin. The serial killer keeps adding to his series of murders because that's the only way he can avoid looking back to the days when he was still innocent and without stain, the only way he can have meaning. To do otherwise would be to reach Lady Macbeth's horrified realization, something almost no one is willing to do, for it requires great integ­rity, a quality that has vanished from the world: 'Nought's had, all's spent.' In other words: 'We have done infamous deeds and gained nothing.' (p. 138-139)

The undercover agent, the eliminator, has to above all these emotions, and act like a cold-blooded rational being: 

"Justice can obscure, can wrap everything in a mist as time moves on, and when it expires, it can erase and cancel out, can decree that what happened didn't hap­pen or has ceased to happen. We are neither the victims nor the family of the dead, but we are memory, those who never forget. In that sense, and only in that sense, we are like the terrorists and the mafias from whom we differ in one vital detail, as Tupra reminded me on that January day: 'They're also ahead of us when it comes to hatred. But hatred isn't our style, as you know. That's unknown ter­ritory for us.' That's true and as it should be, for we must always remain immune to the five contagions as taught to us by our former legendary instructor Redwood. 'Cruelty is contagious. Hatred is con­tagious. Faith is contagious. Madness is contagious. Stupidity is contagious. We must avoid all five.' (p. 435).  

And what is true of the need to avoid hate, is also true for love. Tomás Nevinson may be in love with his wife, even if they are divorced, and his alter ego Miguel Centurión may become infatuated by one of his potential victims, this is indeed to be avoided, because he could kill the one he loves. 

He is of course in essence a Spanish author, often referring to Spain's dictatorial past yet linked to the situation in general today of the relationship between electorate and politicians: 

"One must never forget that Spaniards from all over Spain - even those who don't consider themselves to be Spanish - have a deep-seated tendency to elect the worst possible leaders on offer and to cheer on whatever tyrants are imposed on them, as long as they make nice promises and seem pleasant enough, even if they have lar­ceny written all over their faces and are clearly very nasty pieces of work. (p. 498)

I copied some passages that are highly abstract, yet of course the story actually consists primarily of dialogue and interaction of the many characters, their interesting pantomime of possible double roles and the hiding of reality. 

Marías's prose is an absolute delight, although I can understand that it may be too long-winded for many readers. At a certain level, you want the action to move on, but the stalling, the reflections, the analyses and the exploring of all the options is part of the mesmerising power of his style. And it is fun to read that in a book of 634 pages, the following paragraph starts a new chapter on page 532: 

"It seemed that the action, the act, the deed was getting closer. And that I would not escape. One always nurses the vain hope that some­thing will· crop up, that the sentence will be commuted ( even a prisoner on the scaffold has high hopes), that the orders will be rescinded or cancelled, that someone will back off at the final moment. And if that doesn't happen, you appreciate and treasure each day's delay, each hour's deferral, each minute of procrastin­ation, anything that allows you to keep telling yourself: 'It will be, it will be, but not yet, not yet.' (p. 532)

So, reader, beware: the book is not about the final deed. It is about the dilemmas and internal battles leading up to the deed. 

Brilliant!

Sally Rooney - Intermezzo (Faber & Faber, 2024) ***

"Intermezzo" brings the story of two brothers: Peter is a lawyer in his thirties, and Ivan is a chess prodigy in his twenties. The story starts after the death of their father, which forces both brothers to face a new reality, bringing them together, or rather confronting them. Peter has a girlfriend who was in an accident and their relationship is compromised as a result, which makes him enjoy life - and sex - with the much younger Naomi, who sees life more as a joke. Ivan meets the much older Margaret at a chess game and they start a relationship. 

The chapters are written from the perspective of the two men, almost alternating, in a totally different style. Peter's stylistic voice is nervous, with shorter sentences, almost panting, and with much more cynicism in his reflections. Ivan's is more traditional, composed, thoughtful. Both men cannot without each other, but they could not be more different. Ivan is trying to extract himself from his older brother's fatherly attitude, while Peter feels responsible for Ivan now that they are orphaned. They become mirrored in the story. Peter can reproach Ivan that Margaret might take advantage of his youthful innocence, while not realising that Ivan can think the same of Peter's relationship with Naomi. 

Rooney is a wonderful writer. She knows how to give her characters their profile and voice, she creates an intricate web of emotions, conflicts and situational tension, in a very balanced and orchestrated way. 

Despite all the stylistic and writing capabilities of Rooney, I kept wondering why I was reading this? Why would I care about these two individuals? Why is this relevant in any way? It's not a comment on human nature, or society, or history, or politics, or any wider topic that might make it great. Or anything with a strong statement that may make it Art with a capital "a". Rooney remains within the confines of easy prose. It's entertaining and a literary version of a romance novel.