"Listening is the most dangerous thing of all."

One of the benefits of a summer birthday is the marginalized chance of being ill on said day. Of course, as we age, the day becomes ever ambivalent. Today I found myself sick beyond preparation. It has been a rough week w/ viruses making rounds at work and my own sinuses self-immolating. That said, I was hoping for a reprieve today. It didn't happen.

Instead my wife and I perched in our living room and read. Art Tatum and Eric Dolphy contributed greatly. I have spent the bulk of the week exploring the work of Marias. There was no disappointment here. Heart So White continues the interrogation of listening which haunts Marias' other novels It is noted how one can't not hear, unlike closing one's eyes. It is also intimate, arousing matters both sexual and sinister. The chief characters are interpreters and translators. The locales are again global: Madrid, NYC, Havana and Geneva.

This was an amazing vehicle and even the author's efforts to combine a Jupiter Symphony of references in the closing 30 pages couldn't derail this amazing project.