The Correspondent

Relíquias

fragmentos ilegíveis do exemplar lido — a margem material

• É sobre uma senhora de setenta e poucos anos, e tem o costume de se comunicar através de cartas e e-mails e faz isso ao longo de alguns anos. Fala sobre a sua relação com a família, o ex-marido, os filhos, netos, amigos, pretendentes, no interior dos EUA. E traz os conflitos que ela construiu ao longo dessa vida, conflitos internos e com a sua família, conflitos também dos seus amigos e parentes. Fala do envelhecimento dessa senhora que fez carreira no meio legal/jurídico, de sua personalidade forte, mas também de sua sensibilidade. Também mostra a fragilidade que ela tem, especialmente em relação a como ela lida com a família.

• É um livro muito legal, readability é nota 10. A história engaja, me lembra de Theo of Golden (protagonista idosa, interior dos EUA). Reflexões são simples, prosa menos sofisticada que Theo of Golden, por isso nota 9 no geral. Mas estava 10 e acabei mudando. Seria nota 9.5.

• “I’ve been happily on my own since. In the last few years, I have found that I miss that ongoing conversation, the idle back and forth to pass in the morning, or while you walk from the car to the restaurant, or whatever it is.”

  p. 71

• “Golf, drinking, staying in one's pajamas until late in the morning, stretching oneself to find ways in which to pass the days is the way we were meant to spend our vacation weeks, not decades of our lives.”

  p. 81

• “Now that I'm dying it seems much simpler than it ever did before. Living, I mean. There is no parallel universe. There is no "what could have been if only."”

  p. 113

• “I'm terrified. However, one must attend the funeral. There is nothing I can think of more important than the prioritization of attendance to a funeral.”

  p. 133

• “Terrible things happen. We make choices. Time cannot be rewound. The good that comes out of the bad can be unbearable.”

  p. 186

• “Harry's left. I don't know what I was doing with myself before. How did I fill the days? Reading, letter writing? Is that all it was? I had begun to look forward to having my life back to its old order, but now that he's gone the quiet feels like loneliness, where it did not before. At least, if it did, I didn't realize.”

  p. 190

• “I am an old woman now, and have a few great regrets, and this is one of them. Someone I loved very much said once to me there is no parallel universe; there is no ‘what could have been if only.’ How I wish there was.”

  p. 252

• “I'd brought some legal documents along and that had bothered him because it was supposed to be family time and there I was with my briefcase, so I was sneaking work in whenever he wasn't around.”

  p. 261