#the sentence

[derangedrhythms]

Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova: Reed; from ‘The Sentence’, tr. Judith Hemschemeyer

#anna akhmatova #the complete poems of anna akhmatova #reed #the sentence #poetry #excerpts #memory

[morepeachyogurt]

the sentence by louise erdrich

#louise erdrich #the sentence #quotes #words #literature #books #exerpts #on loneliness #on childhood

[hiyutekivigil]

the sentence, anna akhmatova

#hiyutekivigil #the sentence #anna akhmatova #poem #poetry #lit #literature #academia #academia aesthetic #dead poets society #dead poets society aesthetic #russian literature #russian poetry

[cpmhew]

Now I live as a person with a regular life. A job with regular hours after which I come home to a regular husband. Even a regular little house, but with a big irregular beautiful blowsy yard. I live the way a person does who has ceased to dread each day's ration of time. I live what can be called a normal life only if you've always expected to live such a way. If you think you have the right. Work. Love. Food. A bedroom sheltered by a pine tree. Sex and wine. Knowing what I know of my tribe's history, remembering what I can bear to remember of my own, I can only call the life I live now a life of heaven.

-The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

#this book absolutely bowled me over #the writing is fucking gorgeous and the story is so moving and rich and layered #and TOOKIE my BELOVED such a goooooood good good interesting complicated deeply loveable character #the sentence #louise erdrich #(emphasis mine) #oh and also if you listen to audiobooks Louise Erdrich narrates this one and she's phenomenal #cp

[ademella]

currently reading

#books #reading #louise erdrich #the sentence #book cover #novel #indigneous

[madamemarmot]

WOMAN: It has taken me years, but I've read all of Proust. I need something complicated. ME: Have you read the Russians? WOMAN: My god, has it come to this?

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

#the sentence #louise erdrich #novels #quotes #fiction #21st century #indigenous #native american #russian literature #french literature #proust #bookstore

[iamdexter123]

The patience of him, the way he was devoted to that feather, worked on me. Again and again he warmed the feather, bent it the opposite direction, pulled it straight, warmed it again. He seemed the picture of human love. I knew the fan was for me. I knew the feathers were actually me — Tookie — straightened by warmth applied a thousand times.

- Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

#quotes #louise erdrich #the sentence #finished this on the plane home tonight #a book about a bookshop and books? yes please #now to pick another for a different plane to a different city tomorrow #dexterreads

[ilikereadingactually]

The Sentence

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

it feels almost criminal that i have waited this long to read any Louise Erdrich. her work has been in my periphery since 2004, when my best friend wrote heavily about one of her books for her undergraduate thesis (sorry B, i still haven't read The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse). i picked up this one earlier this year, when i was only just getting back into reading more regularly, because (i'm pretty sure) that same friend recommended it, and i love ghosts.

this book contains so much, and somehow still feels so simple and straightforward. like, of course, perfectly ordinary for Tookie to help a crush by transporting a body, who hasn't laughed at greeting card that promises the same? totally expected for the justice system to work against and incarcerate an Ojibwe woman, and just totally normal life stuff for her to marry the former cop who arrested her after she gets out and then have a fraught relationship with his grown daughter and surprise grandchild. and come on, what indigenous-owned independent bookstore isn't haunted by the ghost of a regular customer, especially during early COVID-19, in Minneapolis, amid the grief and rage following the murder of George Floyd?

SO MUCH HAPPENS in this book, but it's all narrowed to Tookie's pov--her own very personal and specific wants and fears, her struggle and belief. it's beautifully done, so delicately balanced, a book that fills you like a warm meal even as you're crying and remembering what you felt like sitting in bed and looking out the window and wondering when you would ever feel safe out there again. i hesitate to call it magical realism, even though i think that's where it falls in the range of "kinds of books i like," because Tookie presents every event as equally real--and in February of 2020, i would have thought a worldwide pandemic and indefinite lockdown just as unlikely as a retail ghost and the otherworldly power of an old book (which is to say, all things i could imagine happening but had never happened to me personally). magnificent.

the deets

how i read it: as an ebook from the library, via Libby! this was at a time when i hadn't yet gotten back into the habit of reading and so frequently forgot to go back to books i was in the middle of, but this one was so compelling i actually finished it before it was due.

try this if you: are ready to process some of that 2020 terror, love a main character whose flaws are part of her charm, want a book with a majority native cast of characters, or just want to hang out in somebody else's weird life for a while.

some memorable moments: i read this a while ago and no longer have it handy to quote, so this is a fun test of my bad memory! there were a lot of scenes i really liked that i can recall, but one that sticks out as very charming to me was when Tookie's artist coworker at the bookstore closed herself in a repurposed confessional booth to decorate the inside, got a little high on the glue, and in this altered state confirmed Tookie's suspicion that a former customer was haunting the store. I loved everything about this; the slightly weird artsy coworker, the confessional in the bookstore (based, i presume, on the one that lives in Erdrich's store, Birchbark Books), the triumph of having someone validate your ghost theory and the tragedy of wondering if it's just because she's been breathing glue fumes.

also, i just love so so much that Louise Erdrich wrote herself into her own book, as the owner of the bookstore in the book which is not quite, but almost, her own bookstore in real life. please i want to just chat with her for several hours, what a mind.

#books and reading #book recs #book reviews #bookblr #the sentence #louise erdrich #indigenous literature

[derangedrhythms]

Also, as I was finding, this dimming season sharpens one. The trees are bare. Spirits stir in the stripped branches. November supposedly renders thin the veil.

Louise Erdrich, from 'The Sentence'

#louise erdrich #the sentence #prose #months and seasons #november

[jennamacaroni]

When my feelings were too much for me I used to wrap myself in blankets and lie in my closet waiting for the feelings to pass. At one point, I decided to become a person who didn't feel so much.  I stand by that decision, though it didn't work.

Louise Erdrich, “The Sentence”

#louise erdrich #quotes #what i’m reading #the sentence

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Sentence | Author: Louise Erdrich | Publisher: Harper (2021)

#books #The Sentence #Louise Erdrich

[dilayin]

Gib mir ein Stift und ein Blatt, guck ich…?

#late night #cruisen #finish #the sentence #escooter

[oldcuriosityshop]

'sentence n, 1. A grammatical unit comprising a word or a group of words that is separate from any other grammatical construction, and usually consists of at least one subject with its predicate and contains a finite verb or verb phrase; for example, The door is open and Go! are sentences.' On first reading this definition, I marveled at the italicized examples. These were not just sentences, I thought. The door is open. Go! They were the most beautiful sentences ever written.

—The Sentence (2021) by Louise Erdrich (buy at Erdrich's Birchbark Books or at Bookshop.org; borrow through Libby)

#the sentence #louise erdrich

[mrtheinsatiable]

Another good one, I liked how many layers there were to it, to the title, in the way that it's about a literal haunting, but also about the many ways that a person can be haunted by things besides an actual ghost

But most importantly it's about love

Also there was a 7 page list of book recommendations at the end which makes sense for a book largely set in a bookstore

#louise erdrich #the sentence

[madamemarmot]

She looks but is not in fact particularly graceful. Pen moves with a childish eagerness, jerkily, especially when excited. And she was excited about Christmas because she loves anything with rites, angels, make-believe, chocolate, or gifts. She glowed these days as though lighted from the inside by a Yule log.

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

#the sentence #louise erdrich #novels #quotes #fiction #21st century #native american #indigenous #christmas #chocolate #rites #angel #gifts #yule log

[pjharvey]

making fun of americans is pretty much always ok if youre not doing it in an edgelord “you guys have so many school shootings” way or acting like we’re the only country that has racism. but like posts about americans and hamburger get me every time

#or like that japanese guy on a group chat pretending to be an american and ending every sentence with ‘am i right fellas’