I spent the first 150 pages of this book mildly bored and the last 250 entranced. The last 250 I read straight through, on a night when I couldn’t sleep, which raises the worrying idea that the quality of my attention is what is driving my perception of the quality of the book.
On the plot level, this is a book about a boy and girl who get to know each other in high school and are friends (and sometimes lovers) for the rest of their long lives. On another level, it is a book about what artistic success means. The girl is extremely career focused, and is a big success as a curator. The boy loves to draw, and while he would like to make a big success as an artist, he just doesn’t want it enough to do the non-drawing leg work this requires, such as e.g., making ‘contacts,’ creating things because they are ‘saleable,’ and etc. He often does not draw for long periods, and she gets very frustrated with him, especially when he, in her view, ‘checks out’ by moving to Thailand. It was an interesting way of thinking about what your life is really for, and what it’s worth spending your time on.
Rather touchingly, he dedicates the book to those friends of his he’s had for ‘forty or fifty years.’ I’ve passed thirty years with some. I hope I get to fifty with them all.