On Pico Iyer's last novel, Abandon -- some of the great writing.

Because I just heard my friend of thirty years, Pico Iyer, on Michael Kraszny's Forum this morning, I am going to copy the letter about (mostly quotes from) his last work of fiction, Abandon, which I loved (and which I recommend reading either before or after Dara Horns extraordinary Guide to the Perplexed):

Am taking my own comments out, but here are just a few of the sterling sentences that ambushed me, fell like a rain of coins -- which is to say, it put words on feelings I've had, but never knew how to name:

'We are never less than ourselves than when waiting for a door to open, never more at loose ends.' p. 23

"The heart of life is mystery: Everything we don't know. ... a part of us goes through the rituals of ever day, living, while another part, a deeper part cries out for whatever it is that could take us back. The stranger whose voice we recognize as our own." p. 28

"...looking for all the world like a child dropped off against her will after a custody weekend." p. 38 (SO good!)

"The characters of Farsi rose and broke around him live waves in a foreign desert." p. 64

"...the scholar is a materialist in a different vein." p. 66

"Friendship is in every case an acceptance of someone in all her mess and folly..."
(What a relief it was to read that, seeing as these days all I feel is mess & folly!)

"We are something more than the sum of our mistakes, he thought, then completed the thought: 'But that doesn't make the mistakes any less costly.'"
Whew. Don't I know it.

Also loved: "The believer erects a temple in his mind, and that becomes the locus, the impetus...of his exertions. The unbeliever digs a hole, and then is assured of having no way out.'
Perfect example: addiction.

Loved the stuff about Seville, especially the Alhambra -- which my then-husband and I (a thousand years ago, in, say, 1993), only got to at closing time, and were thrilled when the guard let us in; we had the entire place to ourselves as day turned to night. I was overwhelmed, utterly entranced, in love with the cat that came out to welcome us -- it was every single bit as enchanting and wonderful as anybody on earth has ever described it, and I never wanted to leave. When I did, I was struck with a homesickness so severe I wanted to cry.

"He had about him the quality that Persia had carried through all its empires, of melancholy, the sadness that accompanies a fall from glory. And mixed with that, a bitterness, that insufficient attention was being paid."

(Selfishly, I equated this with the way things used to be as a working, published writer, then the shocking reality of Amazon, and only those that know how to social-media promote themselves coming out first).

Loved the description of people 'Embarrassed by their innocence, in a way, which they try to dress up with knowingness and glamour.'
(And how you learn, if perhaps you've been to many places, must play having been there down)

"'You know me,' she said, looking up. "I've always got someone wonderful in my life. The only trouble is, he never comes out of my head and asks me to dance."

And oh God, this! : "I'll be lucky to find a single sentence no one has ever written before."
(Having read as much as I have, I now pronounce you lucky).

'The first prerogative of power is to do as it chooses and not even look at the rules it is breaking.' p 163 (Like having written for 25 years, you can cut from present to past tense, first to 3rd person, misspell words, etc -- once you know the rules, that is, inside and out). Though I realize this reference is to more serious things...(ARE there more serious things??)
Yes, I DO live in quite the narrow, conscripted world.

I really loved the sweet, extremely romantic and circumspect way you described their love-making, especially the dialogue between them. It is so not the way I do it, with all my graphic descriptions, and yet shows the love so much more than the making.

Loved the poem on p. 180. And then afterwards: 'Precisely the habit that had made him saddest of all in her: to pretend to be a smaller person than she was.'

I couldn't help but think how different that made him from every other man on Earth, who seems to work hard at doing just the opposite (and doubtless where she got that habit, beginning with her father).
Plus: 'A metaphor is a series of symbol' -- 'So is a lover.'

Also loved the little tricks of cheap travel -- the courier system, the desk at Alitalia. Wonderful hints for young people! And made his capacity to take off at whim's fancy as a broke grad student absolutely believable.

And Juan Ramon Jimenez's poem, but didn't think 'recojia' was matched well with 'gather' -- there's something of recollection in recojia -- as if to gather again -- but I still don't like the word gather. It's so much less ... active, I guess, then recojia. But would have to go back and immerse myself in Spain and Spanish to get to the heart of it all (my one great wish!)

Re being in Iran: 'he thought of a man who got up in his Sunday best -- coat and tie and polished shoes -- though his wife had died ten years ago and now he was eating alone every night.'

Thank you so much for this beautiful, thoughtful, totally original work of art, Pico Iyer. What a slow joy to read it.

PS apparently I was incapable of taking out all the personal asides. Unfortunately, I seem to be bent on being crowned queen of the parenthetical aside. But if you like those...!