Book Review - The Roving Shadows

Pascal Quignard is cryptic - so many associations and incidents. Chapters (long and so short) begin as meditative quotes and then you are held by your hand and walked through a thicket of words and incidents and semantics – and across this path lies lush green pastures sometimes, sometimes more complex curves – as though you are travelling in the topological sub-manifolds of a Euclidean world.
You do not understand it all, you do not feel associations. Many feelings come to mind – all at once. Trash. Profound. Non associative but meditative. “He begins with

out apologies or context – does he write for himself alone?” “Did I miss this or the world?”….Hmm. Why interject nun’s child speaking in latin with medieval punishments, how does apology work in nature, dark blue clouds pierce through the sky and a swarm of butterflies have invaded the earth. Wait a minute – were we not in the middle of a treatise on how past cleverly hides in every cloaked amulet present tense throws on?

You do not know where you are going, when he will untangle his grip on your senses, but you like you are being led. You like the nowhere you will walk unaware. It is addictive – like waves slowly splashing on your dry sole by seashore – now touching now withdrawing enticingly. What will the next wave of words bring on? Who would associate shadows with eating by candle light and then end that synopsis with shadows as memories that transcend description. Tankzaki preferring Japanese, old wooden lavatories over puritan glazed ceramic – rubbing preface with Jesus sounding out betrayal in John 15:9.