when the text invites you to read it over and over again

Anne Michales: Held. 

Anne Michaels is a Canadien writer, well translated, well awarded and for a very good reason, in my opinion.

I liked this book, Held, this which appealled to me in in bookstore (#mollat) because of it inviting cover. I did not know anything of the writer prior nor did I have heard of the book but a historical novel, of a poet, well, it is a concept that speaks volumes to me. t

I have not had a regret of purchasing Held.

It is written in such a beautiful language, quite lyrical language (which I love love love) with mystical beauty and as mentioned, all that I respect and admire. Michales has written (published) mostly poetry and that shows, lingers between the lines of the story written to many decades.

I read "Held" a couple of months ago and I still feel the text, it´s tensions, it´s lyrical flow. Still kind of miss it, think about all that I might have missed reading it and I am glad I have Held in my bookshelf, soon I will read it again. Complete my missing.

I appreciate a melancholy in a book, the atmosphere, and that was well on in this book. Tha book is structured in a very fragmented way, I liked that too, but to be able to fully enjoy it, it needs time and clearity to fully dive into the gaps in the story, in between time periods, the time flowing in the fragments.

The beginning of the book in placed in a battlefield, year 1917 where John lies unable to move or feel his legs. But he returns home, to his love Helena, to photography. On the course of the book one reads of people during a hundred years since the happenings flow from 1917 France to North Yorkshire, London after the WW2, Suffolk, Estonia in the 1980´s and even the Gulf of Finland in year 2025.

This is a book that is worth owning. I think I am going to read this many times, soon the second time, since there are so many interstextual levels and so much to understand within the charaters an how they fit into the course of time. I think was not able to suck all in the first time, this book deserves another read (at least from me).