If you grew up in Canada- particularly small-town Canada- it's likely you've come across the iconic sight of a tiny little restaurant nestled in a town of roughly 5000, with the wonton font sign that reads "Chinese and Canadian food" serving up ginger beef, general tso's chicken and chow mein under the glow of orange paper lanterns. It's a part of Canadian culture that, as it turns out, has some fascinating history behind it. Ann Hui's Chop Suey Nation looks into that history through two main storylines: one consists of her and her husband doing a Cross-Country road trip from B.C. to Fogo Island, Newfoundland, stopping at small-town Chinese restaurants along the way. The owner follows her father growing up in China, preparing food for a group of boys, eventually moving to Canada and opening a restaurant in British Columbia. Along the way, it also touches on aspects of Chinese-Canadian history like the exclusionary head tax and the "paper sons," something I, as a Canadian, had never heard of. I love reading about food history, but Chop Suey Nation is the first book I've read that closely examines my own country's culinary culture, though I'd still recommend it to non-Canadians interested in the subject. It does what every good story about food history should, telling the story of a people through the food they eat and how it has adapted over time.

I'm not sure what to say about this one. I'm becoming kind of an NDiaye addict. She seems to have moved literature forward about a hundred years, and I think the possibility is fairly high that generations to come, if the human race makes it, will refer to our age, in literary contexts, as NDiayean. As we refer to Shakespeare's time as Elizabethan, or Dickens' as Victorian.

Now, I do get carried away sometimes. It happens. I was sure I was going to want to re-read the first story in this collection after I had finished the book, and I did not. But it's dear to me! It has moved off the printed page and into my skull and there it sits, grinning at me in a rather skull-and-crossbones sort of way, and seeming to want me to guess what it's going to come up with next. Seeming to promise that I won't like it, but it will be interesting, and it knows I like THAT.

I did have to re-read the first couple of stories, just to figure out what was really going on. I think the reason is: she seems to light up the dull insanities we all live with, from day to day, as though they were just as pointless and random as they actually are, but special. It's true; they are special. There's something very truthful about all this, in spite of the fact that the stories themselves cannot be true. (And why do authors of fiction so often say they seek truthfulness? I do not know. Maybe that's just one of the common insanities?)

But it's the fact that they are insanities that makes them hard to follow or make sense of. And you have to somehow make sense of something if you're going to pull a story or a character out of it. With an insanity, obviously, it's a challenge.

Oh I love her characters though. A great teacher, in thrall to his worst student. A servant of servants, begging desperately -- and very plausibly -- to be allowed to become a slave. A woman who can no longer live with her son, who is the only one who understands her and whose understanding she needs, just to go on. It's a remarkable collection. Ave, ave, ave!

EDIT PS if you haven't seen White Material, the Claire Denis film, do that. I watched it yesterday or the day before and it's awesome. NDiaye co-wrote the screenplay, and I seem to see that it shows.

Monarchs of the Sea by Danna Staaf

I will maintain that a popular science book written by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable author is well worth the time. This is such a book.

Danna Staaf is a PhD in invertebrate biology and has been studying them for decades. And in that time, she hasn’t lost the enthusiasm. What’s more, she knows about their history. Strike that, their paleontology or pre-history. Before this book, I knew about ammonites, but not the details of them, nor did I think about how long they’d been around and the major extinction events they’ve survived (three, maybe 4 if you count the Anthropocene).

The early ancestors are coleoids and ammonoids, and they were so diverse and numerous that their presence is used to date fossil layers. They were varied enough in their shells and structures that you could tell one type from another.

But wait there’s more! They developed the first forms of buoyancy with their shells and that allowed them a huge range of territory and food. And the innovations kept on coming. Internalized shells. Shellless. Ink. Eyes. Intelligence. Camouflage.

They kept surviving extinction events - the Great Dying, The Triassic-Jurassic Extinction and the Cretaceous Paleogene extinction. Add into the above advantages a tendency towards r-selection (lots of babies, short life spans) and they’re even doing pretty well in the Anthropocene (with the notable exception of the nautilus). 

This is likely a book that malacologists, particularly paleontologists that specialize in the arena, know all about. But as a layman, this was a fascinating book. It taught me about the ones found in deep time, and about how they “innovated” along the way, what scientists have been able to learn from the fossils about their lives and behaviors. 

They are a deeply different phylum than us - one with a different umwelt in a lot of ways. But also very different brains and nervous systems. And they are fascinating for it.

Suggested for fans of popular science books, molluscs and their evolution.

SPOILERS

not in the post body but many in the comments!

I'm not the target market. I shouldn't have picked it up. But I was curious about what all the hullabaloo was about especially since the casting announcements and I'm annoying like that. The moment I hear they are adapting something I have to read it and then I'm not watching it. 😆

I don't have it in me to pick apart instances that are spoilers but I'll just talk about the overarching annoyance.

I hate everyone in these book! All the main characters suck ass! I'm mid way through Iron Flame and it's my eyes and ears that are flaming! The oh he's so beautiful every 2 minutes and the asinine mindless arguments and just the sheer pigheadedness of the lead characters and just the lack of personal space and ability to keep private things private. I actually don't mind the world building too much but I abhor the love story and I quite dislike everything else. I will finish it because I have to. And I don't know if I'll pick Onyx Storm or not, (I will) arghhhh damn the completist in me!

Welcome readers,

Have you ever wanted to ask something but you didn't feel like it deserved its own post but it isn't covered by one of our other scheduled posts? Allow us to introduce you to our new Simple Questions thread! Twice a week, every Tuesday and Saturday, a new Simple Questions thread will be posted for you to ask anything you'd like. And please look for other questions in this thread that you could also answer! A reminder that this is not the thread to ask for book recommendations. All book recommendations should be asked in /r/suggestmeabook or our Weekly Recommendation Thread.

Thank you and enjoy!

I’m Ashley, a PhD researcher from the University of New England (Australia), and I'm currently researching the modern resurgence of Regency Romance literature and screen adaptations (like Bridgerton).

As part of my thesis, I’m exploring how the genre is opening up to new audiences, how reading habits have shifted, and whether changing demographics, inclusivity, and character representation are altering how we consume and enjoy these stories.

If you are a reader, writer, or viewer of Regency Romance (or historical romance in general), I would love to hear your thoughts!

What it involves: A brief, completely anonymous online questionnaire about your experiences and perspectives on the genre.

Ethics Approval: This project has been approved by the UNE Human Research Ethics Committee (Approval No: HE-2026-3188-6413). Full participant information and consent details are available at the start of the survey.

👉 Take the Survey Here: https://unesurveys.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bjfqHGgympO6n3M

I’d also love to chat in the comments: For those of you who read or watch Regency Romance, what do you think has driven the massive surge in popularity over the last few years?

Thank you so much for your time and help with my research! 

(This post has been approved by the official MODS) 

1984 by George Orwell. Rightly, a major classic of political literature (and wrongly co-opted by the right, as Orwell was always a democratic socialist. That’s a conversation for another day).

Although Orwell’s dystopia was powerful and expertly written, timeless and unfortunately relevant in all eras when authoritarianism rises again and again, it is not perfect. No work of art is. And one of the ways 1984 has been criticized has been in its treatment of women. In the character of Julia specifically, Winston Smith’s somewhat younger lover who was treated as a plot point in the main protagonist’s journey isn’t quite a three-dimensional person in her own right, mostly just someone for him to love and later betray, without much motivation herself.

This is a fair take, and in my view it doesn’t take away from the novel. It was ultimately about Winston’s point-of-view, how a man like that would be affected in a totalitarian world. It’s not necessarily about woman’s oppression, or the lower class proles, or racial minorities who are victims of imperialism. Not every book has to be about everything. Still, 1984 is remarkably universal.

Julia by Sandra Newman, is a new novel—approved by the Orwell estate—retelling the 1984 story from the perspective of Julia. It’s a longer and more emotionally-detailed story, getting deep into the weeds of her life and her thoughts (so many sexual thoughts), as she has more affairs and thinks ill of Winston. Her story even even after continues Winston’s end and expands upon the rest of the world. And that’s the good and bad of it.

I’m not sure that Big Brother’s Oceania really needs more lore. The power of 1984 rather needs its brevity, its mystery. The reader is never even sure if Big Brother and Goldstein truly exist, if the tales told about the outside world is real or not. The evil manipulator and torturer O’Brien insists that history has been frozen at a particular point in time, but can he be trusted? Is the superstate destined to always win, as he insists and seems to be proven right, or could the system crumble without anyone in the Outer Party even aware of it?

Julia delves much more into these subjects, and it is interesting subject matter for what it is, but probably does not improve on 1984 as a standalone work. Frankly, we do not need more lore. But on its own merits the novel is an intense read. It has been said that it is a feminist retelling, and indeed Julia’s and her comrades at the hostel are uniquely oppressed by the system for being women. Pregnancy and assault are common issues among the Anti-Sex League members. And it is graphic, from the miscarriage early in the novel to her many gruesome torturers in the latter parts. The purpose of this sort of story is horrific, and it succeeds at that. However, this horror is mostly a character study on Julia herself, the main focus, and thus feels less like a social critique.

The strongest parts of the novel are backward in time and concern Julia’s childhood and the degradation of the state and the citizens’ freedom which she grew up in. The story of her mother is particularly heartbreaking, and worth reading the entire novel for this backstory alone. Newman’s writing is well crafted, vivid, and engaging.

The ending of the book would be the most controversial, and it shouldn’t be spoiled, but much of the unsolved mysteries of the original novel are made explicit. Do we need to know Big Brother’s real name? Old war stories from his former colleagues now imprisoned? Descriptions of the crystal castle where he lives? I’m not sure.

Perhaps one of the boldest choices, is about the subject of hope. 1984, in the end, is hopeless. It is supposed to be. The underground, if it ever existed, was simply not to overthrow the dictatorship. Indeed, on the related subject of Orwell’s other seminal work Animal Farm, that even recently had a failure of an adaptation which added a “happy ending.” Among other strange choices in that animated rut, it totally ruined the classic fable. That may go for the book Julia as well. It can be satisfying for the reader, that there may be a chance for these poor people to finally escape and be free. Yet, however ironic the very last page is, if that’s the case that there is any hope at all then is it still even an Orwellian dystopian warning anymore…

Klara and the Sun felt like such a special book but I'm afraid I will never be able to read it again (spoilers)

I decided to pick up Klara and the Sun after seeing the trailer for the film and it seemed like a fun watch.

I've just finished this about 5 minutes ago and I absolutely loved the book! It was as though I was reading life observed through the eyes of an overly anxious, hypervigilant child. Which I'm sure a lot of us can relate to. It's amazing, throughout the book it feels as though Klara has a feeling of underlying dread that she can't quite grasp and is constantly searching for answers around it. Maybe that passed on to me a little as I spent the entire time hoping things would work out for her more than I did Josie, as messed up as that sounds.

As you can guess, the ending absolutely ripped my heart out! After all they went through together she spent her final years mostly ignored sitting in a cleaning cupboard looking out of a tiny window... Like an old vacuum cleaner

Then after a tiny glimpse of hope that Klara would at least spend her days in the place she loves she was discarded and left in a dump with nothing but her memories to sit with and the worst part of it all, she was at peace in her loneliness because Josie was happy and alive.

I can't believe how it all ended for Klara and even more so I can't believe I'm sat here so heartbroken over the ending of a fictional robot. What a beautifully devastating read.

I think I'm going to check out more work by Kazuo Ishiguro because I don't think I've felt this way over a book In a long while.

For those that have seen the film, is it worth the watch even after reading the book?

[The Author] spent a decade deep in research, resulting in the first scholarly biography of Biddy Mason.

The City Council’s recent move to rename Pershing Square for Mason has refocused public attention on her history. Yet we’re no closer to identifying the single figure behind her emancipation, a historic case that broke the back of slavery in Southern California.

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Just read this story/novelette and was gobsmacked -- I knew zilch about it going in (that's my preference when it comes to books or movies) so just bopped along with the plot and the characters and had that "tickling" in my brain wondering which girl was which and of course Morrison never affirms. Only afterward did I read the (protracted and annoying) analysis the New Yorker had published; only then did I realize the reader was the experiment. I wish I could take a poll; how many readers picked Twyla as .... I am still hankering to know the "correct" answer even though I know there IS no correct answer! Genius. Major props to Ms. Morrison

So I have been eyeing the Bel Jar for a while but on every review or even content mentioning the book or anything by Sylvia Plath there is a significant backlash the poster receives for promoting an author that was racist.

I can't really comment on how big of a racist she was cause I am not too familiar with her. But I disagree a bit with the idea of holding her on the same grounds as you would an author from this age. Also I think its okay to like or even recommend her books despite her views cause the art and the artist should be treated as separate entities especially since her books do seem to resonate with so many women across the globe.

I really do want to try her books out but I do feel a tad bit guilty cause a large (or loud) proportion of people seem to think it's unethical.

A difficult slog to be sure; as difficult as slogging up and down the Congo River in a steam paddleship in 1899. A book constructed in LONG, uninterrupted stretches of dialogue from our primary narrator, Marlow, as conveyed to us by a younger man listening to an old man recount his days of adventure.

Even though I deliberately approached this book with a patient mindset, reading slowly, as if being spoken to, much of this work was still very difficult to follow. Yet something in the opening few dozen pages, something about the language, the wicked playfulness, the sinister air of slavery and death in the air, caught me and held me at least long enough to finish it. And know that English was a second language for Conrad, wow.

Of course, everyone knows the film, Apocalypse Now, was based on this novella, and it was pretty cool drawing the comparisons. The "harlequin" character I immediately pinned as Dennis Hopper's inspiration, transposed into a 60's psychedelic explorer.

A young adventure-seeker, bound to sew his wild oats, meets ways with a Belgian ivory company (yes, THAT Belgium, notorious for colonial cruelty in Africa under King Leopold II) and signs up as a crewman on a steamer. One name keeps coming up as he steams his way up the "dark" river: Kurtz. The various companymen he meets at the few "stations" positioned on the banks of the Congo always seem to speak of him with reverance. It's weird, honestly. The gusto with which he is regarded. "He was a remarkable man." Long stretches devolve--or evolve?--into really abstract, trippy language. And you have to imagine yourself as a young man listening to Marlow speak this language. You would be intrigued and impressed, as well.

Again, a difficult read. Fun to draw comparisons with Apocalypse Now, and a work to be contemplated as the lofty creation of a fellow human being. Impressive, yes. Difficult, also yes. Worth it? I think so. There were some parts, especially, towards the beginning, that were, like, woah. This is something special.

Bluntly, for a novel that's 20 years old, it's uncomfortably relevant to today. The depiction of a republic increasingly seeing political norms being violated, a little farther each time, and particularly being strained under the actions of men rich enough to be effectively above the law because everyone is either afraid of them or wants something from them. In particular, one thread is the richest man in the world attempting to straight up buy an entire election and the government itself. With Musk spending $450 million dollars to help Republicans, along with a considerable amount of activity that used to get you a RICO case, it's eerie.

I realize that these themes are present throughout the history of democratic politics to some extent, but the parallels to the modern day are simply striking. I'm not sure I want to read the rest... it might hit too close to home for comfort.

Also, for being the central figure, I have to say Harris doesn't paint an overly flattering portrait of Cicero. He's depicted as a brilliant man who has good principles and realizes what danger the Republic is in... then repeatedly ignores or compromises those principles in the pursuit of his political career. I realize it's realistic because people do that all the time, but it's also incredibly frustrating at times.

I really enjoyed the Good People by Patmeena Sabit! I finished in two days because I couldn’t put it down. Those of you that read it, what did you think about the ending?

My first reaction was disappointment that we don’t find out what happens, but after mulling over it, I think that is the point that the author was trying to make. In real life, we don’t find out what really happened in cases like these. I have my own theory on what happened, and would love to hear what others think of it. I don’t think the family did it. I could see just how much they loved Zorah despite their anger towards her.

While reading the later parts of the book, I could not shake the feeling that Zorah committed suicide and staged her death to make it look like a murder committed by her parents and brother. Over time, she had built up intense resentment toward them due to their strict rules. She was clearly struggling mentally in the year leading up to her death, and breaking up with her boyfriend pushed her over the edge. To start building a narrative against her family, she began telling others that her father had threatened to kill her. She also manipulated search histories to frame her brother and parents. She rolled down the window of the car before drowning herself to make it look like foul play. Given her behavior and psychological state over her final two years, planning something like this seems very plausible.

I would love to hear what others thought of the ending, and if you have any theories on what happened!

I understood this book did not contain what I expected (I wanted for pop-ethology) but the evolutionary history of the horse was relayed intelligently and playfully. I enjoyed the prose and even where I saw the author coming to conclusions that I did not feel the presented evidence warranted, I still wanted to read her view.

Then came the final chapter about rewilding Przhevalsky's horses in Mongolia.

Among the possible explanations for extinction of original Mongolian Przhevalsky's horses was the fact that "Soviets insisted that the Mongolian people settle down and live permanently in collectives"

That's pretty weird but maybe they are talking about Mongolian People's Party bureaucrats, thought I?

But no

"in the midst of Mikhail Gorbachev’s openness policy, Soviet officials contacted the couple and suggested several possible locations in Siberia, Ukraine, East Kazakhstan, and Mongolia"

Soviet bureaucrats specifically under Gorbachev's leadership offering land in Mongolia?

And then a miracle happens

"Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Mongolia became an independent nation."

What?

And this is not a random aside. That is specifically linked to Soviets oppressing Mongolian horse culture and Mongolians regaining their ancestral ways following the dissolution of SU.

It is not an easy mistake to make. If that found its way into the published book how can I trust pretty much anything else that I read there.

I feel angry and cheated. I wish I could erase that book from my brain entirely so I would not have to second guess anything that I "learned" from it.

I've read so many interpretations of this book and I feel like the book requires you to really read between the lines.

I noticed how the main characters are or were involved in a toxic relationship.

The narrator with Maxim. There's a clear power dynamic between them because of the age gap, she's deeply insecure and he clearly doesn't see her an equal. Their relationship is very unromantic. The narrator herself points out that Maxim treats her how she treats the dog, Jasper. The real plot twist isn't that Maxim killed Rebecca, it's the narrator's reaction to that information. She isn't scared instead she's relieved Maxim never loved Rebecca. Even though she grows as a person, she grows in a very macabre way. She becomes confident and fiercly aids Maxim in escaping justice for his crime. She has no real identity of her own; her idenitity revolves around Maxim. A major reason why I think the narrator acts the way she does is because she's isolated - she has no other family or friends and Manderley/Maxim is the only home she knows. I can't help but feel slightly sorry for her.

The relationship between Rebecca and Mrs Danvers is an interesting one. Many people comment on the homoerotic subtext of Mrs danvers' sniffing Rebecca's lingerie but fail to mention that Mrs Danvers knew Rebecca since she was a child. This adds a slightly disturbing element to their relationship. I'm not entirely sure if Mrs Danvers is in love with Rebecca, it seems more like an obsession to me.

Rebecca is an imperfect victim. Many characters tell us or imply Rebecca was cruel, manipulative and a serial cheater. Despite this, Rebecca is still a victim of a dangerous man. Rebecca knows Maxim is too prideful - he won't divorce her because he's afraid of a public scandal. She threatens to destroy his legacy by having another man's baby so Manderley will no longer be the De winter's. Rebecca spits on the face of gender roles by taking control of Manderley. She isn't subservient to a man; she makes her own decisions. She's a foil to the narrator who seeks approval from her husband and is insecure and doesn't know her place in the world. The big question is if Maxim is right that Rebecca intended for Maxim to kill her, what lead her to believe he would kill her? Who has he killed or hurt before?

This book is so layered. There's so many things I have missed because I haven't read it in a while. I will admit the first time I read it I didn't appreciate it but now I definitely do.

I read My Antonia, and at the start I wasn't thrilled, the meandering memories of early childhood felt pointless.

But by the time I got to the end, I turned right back around to page one and started all over- it was that good(and that depressing.)

The Author didn't start out by declaring a promise-n-progress, or spell out how every event related to themes- or to Antonia- the supposed focus. There was no handholding.

Once I began to recognize the pattern in events, pondering how each tied into another, and noticing how every single detail foiled into the deeper re-occuring meaning- it felt very rewarding and beautiful

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Losing The Past

At the center, this book was about past memories, their influence in shaping us years later, as well as the nostolgia and idolization we feel as we peer back at them.

Nostolgia, that pange we feel in our guts as we think back- is the pain of loss imo. We think back to our childhood, and are saddened that that world no longer exists.
We think about to our old friends we know no longer. We think about loved ones who've passed away.

There is a feeling of loss, which this book centers around, and I feel the author's thesis, is that that there isn't a real loss(or rather we should look at it as a glass half-full)- because those memories still exist within us, the version of the people we remeber, will always stay with us and shape us- and that's real.
It maybe faint or hard to see, but their footprints will influence the new roads of the changing world.

That is the "My" In My Antonia, the version of her he knew, will always stay with him, even if they never meet again. Just like Antonia's father will always stay with her.

And not always postively as well, Peter and Pauvel, the Russians, tried to escape their terrible past by going from country to country. New lands, new faces, etc. But the memory lingered and haunted them, to a deathbed.

As I read the second time around, Antonia felt beyond just a character, but a metaphorical vessal for nostolgia.

Each time Jim avoided visting Antonia due to his idolization and expectations, it was an idolization of those past memories, the expectations and loss, and each time he did come back, he re-examines the past, and although alot had changed- he still found the same fire he remebered all those years ago.

The poem the Tramp had in his pocket before comiting suicide, is a real poem that hits at the crux; Poem: The Old Oaken Bucket

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A Story of Immigrants

I loved hearing about the immigrant experience during this era of America, Norweigien, Bohemian, and Danish immigrant waves- the attitudes of natives towards said immigrants, and the exploration of culture, religion, etc.

One of the saddening and interesting empahsis occured after Antonia's father had passed away.

Antonia worked in the fields while our MC went to school. And although Antonia enjoyed the work, I felt part of that point that she had no choice. This was the stark contrast marked in their childhoods.

And I was contstantly thinking about the expectations characeter's had of Antonia, Jim wanting her to behave as his childhood friend again, his grandmother wanting her to be "lady-like" instead of "working as a man" in the fields.

But she could not afford to, she did not have the privilages Jim had.

Although it did not absolve Mrs Shimmerda of her nasty attitude, I felt this theme also applied to her behavior, as the grandmother had put it, "But, you see, a body never knows what traits poverty might bring out in ’em."

It was these tragic differences that fascinated me, and left me with the conclusion that to be benevolant and kind takes strenght and privilage, while being in poverty can easily be interperted as uglyness.

These themes carried fourth in the city saga of the story,

“Maybe I be the kind of girl you like better, now I come to town,” she suggested hopefully.

The contrast between the city children and the immigrant girls, their work drive, family solidarity, Jim's ability to see the virtue and strenght in them that would cause them greater success over the native populations, while it was so easy for Natives to look down upon them, was a fantastic exploration,
And feels more relevant than ever today in the current climate of immigrant experiences and politcs

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Quiet Feminism

Although never explicitly talked about, a large percentage of the cast of characters we women/girls. Although always framed as the immigrant experience, all the city experiences were centered around the immigrant girls, as they worked as helping hands to send money back to their farming families.

The thing I loved most, was there wasn't a single awnser or outcome. Antonia, Lena, Tiny, and all of the immigrant girls, compared and contrasted throughout the story- ended up in many different lives and situations.

Antonia back on a farm, Lena with her clothing buisness and Tiny as the hardened entrepreneur. Yet all of them and their differing outcomes were dealt such dignity, there wasn't a single way to win or to live, despite what other character's may have expected or thought.

All different and thriving in their own unique ways, different values, lives, etc.

Antonia's ending purposefully contrasts her begining, the same elements, farm life, family, city-sick husband, many children, all the same ingrendients, but a very different outcome. Thriving instead of suffering, warmth instead of cold, happiness bubbling out.
Its the same setting, but one step further, one generation ahead- and we can see the hard work paying out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conclusion

There is so much more I could rant and ramble about, every detail, every moment seemed to foil into one theme or another.

A juvinille part of me couldn't help but wonder what life might've been like if Jim and Antonia had gotten together. And a wishful part of me couldn't help but wonder if Antonia's protectiveness over Jim was a bit of jealousy as well as keeping him at arms lenght, knowing his destiny was different, and trying to protect that.

This ended up such a beautiful novel, at the end of it I felt the pange of notolsgia thinking of the start.

For anyone who has read it,

What were your greatest takeways? Favorite characters, memories, themes? Why did Jim never talk about his parent's or memories prior to moving in with his grandparents?

I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man’s experience is. For Ántonia and for me, this had been the road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of for tune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. What ever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.