For me, The Unbearable Lightness of Being-Milan Kundera; On Earth we are Briefly Gorgeous-Ocean Vuong; Love in the Time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The most tragic, painful, human suffering can be presented and these writers present it in the most excruciatingly beautiful prose.
On Earth we are Briefly Gorgeous-“A woman stands on the shoulder of a dirt road begging, in a tongue made obsolete by gunfire, to enter the village where her house sits, has sat for decades. It is a human story. Anyone can tell it. Can you tell? Can you tell the rain has grown heavy, its keystrokes peppering the blue shawl black?”
What is the beauty for you?
From “Winter’s Song”, by Mark Helprin:
But the city is now obscured, as it often is, by the whitened mass in which it rests – rushing by us at unfathomable speed, crackling like wind in the mist, cold to the touch, glistening and unfolding, tumbling over itself like the steam of an engine or cotton spilling from a bale. Though the blinding white web of ceaseless sounds flows past mercilessly, the curtain is breaking . . . It reveals amid the clouds a lake of air as smooth and clear as a mirror, the deep round eye of a white hurricane.
He was so fantastic until he suddenly wasn’t
Soldier of the Great War and Winter’s tale are favorites of mine the rest are total shite
I think that’s a little harsh. Winter’s Tale and Soldier are definitely his best, but of his later works, I found his short story collection, The Pacific and Other Stories, to be wonderful. And the fairy-tale-like A Kingdom Far and Clear (Swan Lake Trilogy) is beautiful, too. I wasn’t thrilled with his most recent novel, though it had its moments. Anyway, just offering my 2 cents.
Fair Enough. The Pacific and Other Stories had good stuff. I just found Memoirs from Antproof Case, Freddy and Fredericka, and Sunlight and Shadows just incredibly bad. Sunlight and Shadows was a truly terrible book.