Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick

This book is "okay" but that's as far as I go. It had potential and the beginning is captivating but it doesn't really go anywhere. The writing is also "okay" but it tries too hard. It comes across as a pretentious and it's crude in places just for shock value.Spoiler:The one thing that drove me crazy is there were 4 supposedly intelligent adults but not once did any of them check the radio to see what was happening. They lost access to T.V. and the internet and were at a complete loss. The owner of the house, G.W., actually has emergency supplies in the basement, but no battery operated radio? They also had access to their cars and they did not try to find out information once. This did not make sense to me.I was considering teaching this book in an upcoming climate fiction class but I have decided to pass.

It’s slow to get started. Then when you think it’s going to pick up, it just ends. Characters are not very deep. Don’t know how they made a movie because most of it is thoughts of the people in it. Rather depressing really. Doesn’t make me want to buy anything else he writes.

So I had to leave this book a star to leave a review which I think you should be able to leave a review on any product you've purchased, especially a book or movie, without leaving a star or give an option for half of a star.With that out of the way, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ON THIS BOOK!Spoilers:I decided to read this book because I live "end of the world"/"apocalyptic" stories and the different scenarios that writers can think up. The premise of the book is interesting...at first. The longer this book drags on, and yes, I mean it drags on, the more bored I became and the more frustrated I became as well.A white, middle-class family of 4 (Amanda/mom, Clay/dad, Archie/16 boy, Rose/13 girl) rent a house from the Washingtons (GH & Ruth in their 60s) who are a black, successful couple who are upper, middle-class or lower-upper-class (not sure). You're probably asking me...why am I even explaining this...well...this is suppose to be a story that is about "classism" and "racism" and "stereotypes" and "the human condition".Apparently, you're meant to dislike the characters. The ONLY character I disliked for the first half of the story was Amanda. She's just a rude and cold person who's always looking at her son and thinking about his "young lithe body". Granted, I don't think it's meant to be that way but it came across as very creepy.The reviewers talking about "thrilling" and "tension" in this book must have been reading a different book because I didn't find that in this book. I read a lot of "end of the world" scenarios and near the end the author started getting into things happening to Archie/16 but that was the last 30 to 40 pages and there wasn't enough time spent with this aspect of the story.I saw a bit of the racism/classism that the author & reviewers spoke about but it wasn't...right. I mean I was literally looking for the awkward "racist" or "stereotyping" to cause a big fight but it was mostly inner dialogue and a few things that were said when they'd been drinking. I didn't see what the other reviewers saw so I think we read a different book.Now, I didn't like this book one bit. I didn't like the way the author wrote. It felt like at times he was writing "fluff" to pad out the story to hit a "word mark". Then...there was the over sexualization of the children. Let me mention first that Rose/13 doesn't act like a 13 year old. She often comes across as about 10 years old and I kept forgetting that she was in fact a teenager. The author spent a lot of time sexualizing both of the teens but he especially focused in on Archie/16 near the end of the book who was losing his teeth and pushing his tongue into the hole left by the tooth and the author made that sexual. Yep, gross.That's all I'll say but I am going to give you this direct quote from the exposition dump, pg. 236: "It took unimaginable courage to _ _ _ _ (4 letter word that starts with k) your children. Few people could manage it."This is a quote regarding some random character, a mother, who did that to her two daughters. There is ZERO reason to even have this in the book. It doesn't move the story because the story is over by this point. This "exposition dump" is due to whatever event is going on causing people to do things. None of this even needed to be in the story. The author includes this as Rose is returning to the Washington's home to see her family & the Washingtons. Rose is simply walking and the author is just randomly including things that are happening around the world or will happen or did happen. There are weird time jumps during this exposition dump too. A lot of stuff that shouldn't be placed into this story because it has nothing to do with the scene at hand. It could've/should've been it's own chapter/epilogue but it wasn't so it's the most frustrating part of the book. I nearly threw the book across the room, when I read that. The book ends at page 241 and most of the last chapter has NOTHING to do with the family or the Washingtons (who are "family" by the end of the book in my eyes).DON'T READ THIS BOOK. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY OR YOUR TIME.Was there a resolution to the story? Nope. There was a bit of an exposition dump from a "neighbor"/"contractor" who GH thought was a "friend" when all he did was pay the guy to do work. I thought the guy was going to shoot them or something but that didn't happen. He just told them (us) the same thing we already knew (nothing) and sent them on their way and told them that he could only conversation, implying that he wouldn't share supplies. GH was hurt that his contractor was his friend. I found this to be a very weird thing to have thought in the first place and seemed unlikely that GH would've thought that. He didn't even mention the guy until him & Clay were taking Archie to the hospital and GH decided Danny, his contractor, would know something because they were friends. It made zero sense. It didn't impact the story at all. It didn't move anything along.To be honest, this book c...

Was a different kind of book for me, part of book club pick. I think everyone thinks of these kinds for things but not openly. Enjoy life and live each day to its fullest

I enjoyed this book, but not nearly as much as other books. I was so disappointed to get to the end of the book when I realized it just....stopped. You don't find out what's happening, nor do you know what happens to the characters. Although there are hints and snippets of what it is or what it could be sprinkled throughout the book, you never find out exactly what is actually happening. I'm not a fan of books that end as a mystery, and the reader must guess the ending. I want the entire story. For that reason, I can't recommend it.

Sometimes, a book captures the spirit of the times, perfectly reflecting the emotions and experiences of humanity at that moment. In the fall of 2020, as the world grappled with the uncertainty and fear brought on by the pandemic, the threat of COVID-19 was overwhelming. We watched helplessly as this invisible virus upended our lives, changing them forever. The worst part was that we could not do anything but hope to stay safe. Tragically, many lost their lives before a vaccine was developed, and we slowly began to adjust to our new normal.Rumaan Alam's novel Leave the World Behind was released that October and quickly captivated readers around the globe. The story of two families forced to coexist under one roof as the world around them spiraled into chaos mirrored our new reality and resonated deeply with readers. As is often the case, I avoided reading the novel during its initial hype, only recently rediscovering it on my shelf. I started it eager to see if the story still had the same impact as during that unprecedented year.Amanda and Clay are eager for a getaway. They’ve rented a luxurious Airbnb in a secluded part of Long Island, far from the stress of the city. Along with their teenage son and daughter, the couple plans to spend the next few days relaxing and unwinding, free from the burdens of their everyday lives. But little do they know that everything they’re trying to escape is about to intrude on their vacation, starting with a knock on the door on their very first night.When Amanda and Clay open the door, they find an older couple, Ruth and G.H., who claim to be the owners of the house. Why are they here? The couple is clearly distressed, explaining that a massive power outage has hit the city. They've arrived at their country house in search of their own safe haven. But can Amanda and Clay trust them? With no way to verify their story—since phone and internet services have gone out, and the power is soon to follow—they have little choice but to let Ruth and G.H. in, becoming reluctant housemates in an increasingly uncertain situation.A growing sense of uneasiness permeates each page of Leave the World Behind. Rumaan Alam crafts a narrative where characters are thrust together by sheer circumstance, generating interpersonal drama that echoes the outside world's chaos. As I read, I couldn't help but recall the days of quarantine, confined within the walls of my home with little certainty about what the future held. Even years later, that lingering anxiety haunts me. Alam captures this feeling brilliantly, weaving it into the plot and the characters themselves.Tensions simmer between the two couples, divided by age and race, adding an extra layer of mistrust that fuels the mystery of what’s happening in the world. Why has the power gone out? Why are flamingos flying in the sky? And what was that deafening noise that shattered the windows? Answers are elusive, but that’s not the novel's purpose. Alam invites us to question everything, knowing full well that drawing conclusions may lead us astray. While this approach may yield mixed reactions from readers, I can see why this story has resonated so deeply with many. We lived through a unique moment in time that left us with more questions than answers. Leave the World Behind offers a chance to reflect on that experience through the lens of fiction, providing a sense of catharsis that only a well-crafted story can deliver.

I don't think the author has ever knowingly had a conversation with a human.This is probably safest for all involved.Leave the World Behind is an allegory about race, class, and responsibility set against the backdrop of an ominous Happening - an apocalypse, of a sort. We are left with vague impressions of larger action, never fully explained but only experienced. The race and class allegories are effective, although the plot and characters are subordinate to them in a way that makes this less a novel and more an overwritten parable. We are meant to dislike the characters, and at this the author succeeds admirably; I was left, however, deeply disliking the author.The author's perspective shines through every page of this short novel, and wow, is that perspective a doozy. Everyone (including children) is creepily, insistently sexualized. "It's supposed to be disturbing," the five star reviews say. Yes, it is. But it feels like the author can't shake it, like thinking about genitalia is a compulsion, no matter who it's attached to. It's truly alarming and I hope the author doesn't spend much time around kids. Luckily, I think he doesn't. In fact, I think he's never actually met one.Beyond the bizarre sexualization, the kids are written like subjects in an Attenborough nature documentary; as if they are being watched from miles away through sweaty binoculars, an imagination of their senses by someone who sees them as a different species. Not a single word written about them rings true. They caper as shadows against a wall, a half-lidded puppet master making them move, enjoying the feeling of pretending there are children in his house. They have only the basest motivations, there is no introspection or understanding of their actions.This is true also of the women in the story. They are written sketchily, inhumanely, like the author needed them to say things, to do things, and then get out of the way so he could get to the "good stuff."There is precious little good stuff.Parenting nuggets are dropped constantly, full of avarice (that creepy vibe shining through yet again) and reptilian ignorance, like a T. Rex wandered up to the author's laptop and decided to offer human parents some of its leathery wisdom. The author is constantly explaining himself to us - explaining *why* a character does what they do, *why* one should care about what he's saying, and while it is absolutely boring and bad writing, it's mostly tragic. It feels like the ruminations of someone sitting in the dark alone after losing all of his friends, wondering why everyone was so angry at him, and concluding he is not to blame. The ashamed, (sometimes literally) masturbatory writing for the men in the story, the only characters with any kind of agency, is further example of this. This is an old cliche, but so true in this case: the author needs therapy more than he needed to write this book.The apocalypse elements are interesting, although only the barest time is spent on them. (I'm giving them more words here than he did, really.)Much of the book is taken up by lists, as I'm sure other reviews have noted. There are writers who can do something interesting with an exhaustive grocery list. Not Alam. He will list things happening in the world, like a bat clicking for echoes in the dark, getting bounces off of everything nearby and attempting to make that its worldview. Perhaps this is why this book is so divisive: the author essentially fails to take a human perspective. It is humanity by echolocation.Things in this book just happen. The plot exists, as alluded earlier, to serve allegories, and as such is paper thin and nonsensical. I won't talk much about the allegories here. They deserved to be in a better book. In fact, they could have made for a pretty decent short story. Like Stephen King, Alam may be better when he doesn't have 75000 words to play with.But frankly, I doubt it.

There's no doubt, Rumaan Alam has a way with words. There are some sentences in this novel that are just beautifully constructed. I loved the premise of the plot. The characters were decently developed in a short amount of time. Short quick moving chapters.What bothered me was input of too much detail at times. Did I need to know the pasta was Barilla? Every single item in her grocery list? The name dropping felt like product placement. The bodily descriptions and masturbation detail was just too much as well. Even creepy. Those details were unnecessary to the plot.In contrast to the film, I'd say the film script had some more favorable aspects to it. Danny (a cameo role played by Kevin Bacon) was better developed in the film with one of the greatest dialogue lines of the film, but in the book I was left unfulfilled. Making the wife the daughter in the film was a silly idea, so the book was better in that regard. The book also showed a lot more at the end, though I don't really know how I felt about both endings.The theme is there. Appreciate what we have, while we have it, and remember that it could all change over night. Delivery was messy at times though.

This could have been good....it had a good premise of sorts. It had a tension throughout - we know something is happening, but that's all you get. There was the occasional foreshadowing, the author would say something like, he would never get to use the boat again. "Something" happened or was happening. "In the future the deer would be like such and so..." But was this "something" the end of people or some people? Maybe the tension would have been enough to make a good story if there was more story. I liked the characters, for the most part they behaved the way any one of us might in the circumstances. There wasn't a lot of time spent with any of them. There were a lot of words, but not in conversation, in most cases more words than were strictly necessary. And what was the point of the brief, but frequent, mentions of sex? To prove they were ordinary people? To make it seem real? I don't know about you, but if something strange seems to be happening in the world and I'm staying at someone's house I'm not about to go naked outside and wander about. I'm just weird like that. And the 'animals know what people don't' and even the 'children know what adults can't see' attitudes are annoying. The story starts, 241 pages later the story ends. I'm not sure what came in between was worth it.

I enjoyed the movie and was looking forward to reading the book even though I knew it would be different from the movie, but not in a good way. The author was way in over his head with excessive, detailed description of what the characters were feeling all of the time, way too much psychological analysis for the reader. There is no storytelling at all. This author was trying, yes, trying, to tell the reader something, anything? I even reread pages and tried to analyze what I read but got zip. This is not like the excellent, well expanded movie with all the twists and turns thrown at the viewer. This book is boring, bland, nothing to ponder and has a lackluster conclusion? What happened in the movie was not in the book. No wonder the movie house had to add all the extra scenarios, excitement and tension (that should have been in this book) to make this story be told in the way it should have been done by the author. to begin with.

You’ve probably heard that title but maybe because it is getting so much hype as a Netflix production, but this is for the book. As I started the book, it caught my interest right away. It starts off like a sort of low-key horror story, not the blood and guts kind, but the kind where everything looks so normal and ordinary but with something that isn’t just right, and then there is a decision to make, and you realize that it is a crucial decision. Your left brain is telling the main character to do one thing, and your right brain is already questioning that decision, and you just know that whatever they have decided, it’s going to be the wrong one. Imagine you're on vacation You’ve chosen to splurge on this one in a really nice and exclusive Airbnb in a remote setting. You’ve just settled in, and you’re far from the road, and you can’t even see any other house nearby. It’s now dark, and suddenly, there's a knock on your Airbnb door. There shouldn’t be anyone at your door.Then the novel takes a turn into suspense territory as they decide to open the door and the couple on the other side claim to be the owners of the house. But they’ve rented the house, and they have an agreement through Airbnb. The owners shouldn’t be there. And they are claiming to be escaping some sort of blackout in New York. Do you trust them?Oh, and the other couple happens to be African American, and you realize that the novel may be about racial prejudice. Indeed, Amanda, the wife and mother thinks to herself that this house didn’t seem “like the sort of house where black people lived.” Maybe this is a scam and even when they let them in and it is obvious that they know the house, she wonders if maybe they are the ones hired to clean the house. But they had to let them in. But Amanda struggles with that. Doing so “was a way of acknowledging that they didn’t believe all black people were criminals.” And yet, they had to keep their guard since “A canny black criminal could take advantage of that!”And the plot thickens. The author throws in some strange and even cataclysmic events, though the actual events are not very clear. But the novel does very well in building up a gradual but overwhelming sense of dread in the reader's mind without any overt indication of what there is to fear. And in that way, it is perfect for our time as it brings together the fears of right and left over things like the environment, the climate, inequality, racism, the divisions in society, the growing lack of trust in others and in the system, and our possible over-reliance on technology.The problem comes in the writing. It’s like he is trying too hard. Alam tends to get a bit carried away with metaphors to the point that some sound silly. Ruth, of the homeowner couple, he says "looked like the kind of woman you'd see in a television ad for an osteoporosis medication."There is a lot of extraneous detail. There’s a grocery list just after they arrive at the house that takes up a whole page. I understand that it's trying to emphasize the banality of being completely unprepared for what’s about to happen, but do we need to bore the reader with an entire page of a grocery list to do that?Alam seems to think that he needs to explain everything to us as if we aren’t able to put things together on our own. When the homeowners, George and Ruth come to the door near the beginning and the renters open the door, George holds his hands up and says, “Don’t shoot,” but Alam has to explain to us that “By his age, black men were adept at this gesture.” Really? Do you think we wouldn't get that?I understand being too wordy since I’ve often been accused of that, but this book could easily have been edited down by a third. Descriptive phrases that make you really sense the setting are good, but Alam takes it far beyond descriptive and into distractive. For example, “The air was that sweet cocktail of ocean breeze and happenstance, good for tomatoes and corn, but you thought you could also catch a note of luxury cars, fine art, those soft textiles rich people leave piled on their sofas.”Then there are the detailed descriptions of each family member's body, including genitalia. Do we really need that? And there's a lot of sexual innuendo, including a very questionable description (by the mother in her thoughts) of her teenage children’s bodies that, if spoken publicly, would raise questions of parental fitness.Then, there is the ending. Or should I say lack thereof? I do understand that an ending doesn’t have to answer all my questions and that a little bit of mystery and ambiguity is just the way the real world is. But this book just stops, as if Alam suddenly decided, "Alright, that's enough to fill up a book. I think it’s time for a vacation."I was disappointed. As I started, I felt that the plot had so much potential with its mix of race, underlying vibes of horror, its play on our innate fears of trust and making crucial decisions, apocalyptic fear, and the danger of bei...

Clay and Amanda go on a family vacation with their children to a beautiful cabin far from everything and everyone... Nothing new there... One night, the owners of that house, Ruth and George, show up at the front door. There's been some sort of blackout and they had no idea where to go, except their own house... That, right there, it's the recipe for a fabulous horror / scary book... But no, it disappoints...I absolutely loved the beginning and all the details the author gives the reader: the smells, the sounds, the little movements... It's all those little things that made the situation and the characters feel alive, at least to me! And I felt right there, next to them. The story keeps getting interesting, you start wondering what's going on and if Ruth and George are truly the owners of the house....And slowly, the rhythm starts decaying. It's interesting to witness the characters getting to know each other and try to figure out what's happening in the real world, but it comes to a point when it feels the story is stuck in the same dynamics. It's pretty clear that they all feel like time is going slower, like everything gets weird and they enter this weird numbness... But it feels repetitive to me, even boring at moments...Yes, there are great phrases all around, reflections about relationships, parenthood, even a bit of racism... The topics and the situation are all perfect to create a better drama, or a nice thriller... But it kinda gets stuck in the way, in my opinion. I kept going with the audiobook thanks to the fabulous narration of Marin Ireland. She absolutely nails all the inflections for every character, the dramatic charge of the dialogues, their doubt, fears and anguish... She was amazing!It inevitably reminded me of Paul G. Tremblay's "The Cabin At The End Of The World" and its film adaptation, the whole "end of the world" idea, the emergency system, the urgency... And its weird ending, as well... I feel there's a common denominator there, and not many options to finish a story like this... Some people loved it, some felt disappointed (like me), I guess I was expecting a lot after its interesting beginning and a great writing... But it was entertaining, after all.

For a book about the potential end of the world, this one was kind of boring if I'm being honest. I'm sure there's some existential something or other I'm supposed to get out of it, but I do not see why Julia Roberts is helming the Netflix version coming out later this year.Amanda, Clay and their two kids rent a beautiful house in Upstate New York for the week. Their second night there, an elderly black couple show up and say they're the homeowners. That NYC is in a complete blackout and they fled the city and were hoping they could stay in their own in law suite. While Amanda and Clay are suspicious, they're not really sure how to say no.Then strange things start happening, the tvs and phones don't work, a flock of flamingos bathes in the pool. A sonic boom occurs. Their son gets sick. And then it ends.I guess this is about human nature and fear of the unknown but it was written in such flowery language that I found I really didn't care about the kale that was so green it was almost black.....

I had heard very little about this book but the basic premise involving race: a white family from the city (NYC) rent a home in the country for a week's vacation, but the first night, with a knock on the door, everything changes: it's the homeowners returning, a black couple, approximately in their early 60's. I have no idea what I thought the conflict was intended to be. All I know is that this story was bigger, deeper, more enveloping in more ways than I could count.The homeowners returned because the power went out, some type of "event", no internet, no information, and their home in the country still has power and water.....is there more at play?I cannot imagine that this author had any idea that this story, full of conspiracy theories, end of world scenarios, humanity vs. ourselves, could be played out within the current national stage of the pandemic and what it has turned into on all of its levels. All I can say is that I felt sometimes scared, sometimes lost, sometimes overwhelmed, depressed, invisible, anxious, while reading this story, and its bigger implications.It is told from different POV, but not in the traditional sense that you see stories told today, and those POV somehow surprise you at the ending. That was not it. But when something unknowing is happening, the minutes turn into hours, and the point of reference for a 12 year old is different in the same moment of that of a 60 year old, or a 40 year old.I think that's what kept this fresh, but also, I felt like so much was held back, it's a very thin line to walk, to reveal without revealing. So I thought it was a great strength in its prose, but I also felt somewhere I missed something of each character. Perhaps that was the intent of the writer, to make the characters just soluble enough to see differences but also fill them with our experiences and fears as well.I took a long time to read this book, and it's not a long story. But it would make me stop. Because we are all still living inside of a pandemic, that is obviously affecting all of us on a million different levels, even when we don't want to think about how it has changed us. So it was jarring. And disturbing. In its uniqueness and its monotony.After more time, I might rate this higher. I'm still adjusting to it, its still in my head.

Alam is a very talented writer, but his prose is strongly derivative of John Updike's. Both he and Updike make little writerly observations about everything. Initially, these can seem clever. As the characters in "Leave the World Behind" leave NYC for a vacation at an AirBnB on Long Island, the descriptions of the young teen boy and tween girl and the car trip itself are spot-on. But after they've spent a few days at their destination and the owners of the AirBnB show up, begging to reclaim at least a shared possession of their house due to an unnamed disaster, the observations continue, to the detriment of forward motion. The book just doesn't have much momentum, yet as a reader you feel like it should. Add it to the rapidly expanding genre of Disaster Fiction. "Leave the World Behind" seems like "The Silence" if Updike had written that slim book instead of DeLillo. Alam is clearly a DeLillo disciple too, because this book shares many elements with "White Noise." It's true that as a society we face new dangers, but "Leave the World Behind" felt a bit like a re-tread: focus on the lives of individuals while leaving the disaster itself unnamed and somewhere far-off. "White Noise" did this better many years ago. The characters in "The Road" carried on in a post-apocalyptic world, to greater effect, also years ago. Here, the characters largely cohabitate. There's meant to be a racial tension, as the owners of the rental are black, but this conflict fizzles, especially when they're all sharing drinks and the hot tub. "Leave the World Behind" finally picks up some steam thanks to the children. Not enough attention is paid to the kids. But what kind of event has happened? This bugged me. There are teasers of global war, climate disaster, an attack on the power grid. The warning signs are all over the place. There are mass migrations of animals, sicknesses of some characters but not others, the sonic boom of fighter jets scrambling. Why was I not drawn into this book? The characters, maybe? G.H. and Ruth, the owners of the AirBnB, seemed normal enough. Even Clay, the renter, seemed okay, but his wife, Amanda, was especially repellent without feeling especially well-defined. And the dialogue was very DeLillo-ian, abbreviated, sometimes weighted with meaning yet nonsensical. If there had been less emphasis on sounding clever and more on storytelling, this would've been a better book.

21st century fears are spotlighted in Alam’s new novel. Telling you the genre would be providing a spoiler, because the genre remains evasive and equivocating until close to the end. There are clues, winks, and a MacGuffin or three along the way. When it turned grim and uncomfortable, I felt comforted by trying to guess the narrative’s classification. It’s murky, it’s dark, and requires that you ponder the characters’ flaws in manners, customs of class, and the fractures of their racial insight. The author also offers glimpses of the future (not available to the characters), not to kill reader discovery, but rather to pique our curiosity and add that low level buzz of paranoia. That is what keeps us anxious and disturbed throughout—what happens in the near future?As far as the theme, I would ask: what defines safety? Is it home, family, neither? Is it a fluid concept with no landing place? Are we more trusting of our family, our familiars, or do we depend on the resolve of strangers that share none of our enmity? Behind each question is another, even more cryptic question. The narrative takes you into hard corners and tough spaces, each chapter installing your further into the balance of crisis and normalcy.Amanda and Clay, successful NYC parents, decide on a vacation with their teenage kids to an Airbnb in upstate New York, rural and far away from the closest neighbor. Each of them has an agenda that comes closer to clashing as conflict comes calling at night. At the moon hovers, sights and sounds have an almost hallucinatory effect on the reader and characters. A herd of thousands of deer; strange birds; alarming noises; a Black couple at the door claiming to own this Airbnb and needing to escape an incipient catastrophe in the city. Is this true? What to believe? Is this crisis or guile? Fact or fabrication?Trust the author by following him into the guarded, vacillating decisions of the family, collectively and individually. They seek the typical stability of home--drinking, cooking, sleeping, and tidying. Clay seeks short bursts of escape—to smoke, to think. Amanda worries about their teen children, and keeping bellies full. There are intervals that separate reader from characters—we know what Alam has revealed in his circumspect style, and periodically my mind pinged or ponged over what was happening, and why was this happening. “It was like some tacit agreement; everyone had ceded to things just falling apart.”Literature lovers will appreciate how interior exertions often outweigh exterior commotion.Addendum: This is a book I read in 2020 that I'm finally reviewing.