Susanna Kaysen
Another required read
For a memoir it was fast pasted, and didn't dwell on the fact that everyone was mentally ill, It dealt with the people, not the disease's they apparently had. Nothing is played up for pittys sake, though i'm sure a few violent episodes were thrown out. Straight up good writing, quick read. The bit at the end about the Vermeer struck me as something I would say. I could do without the paperwork between chapters, but i guess it is fitting for this purpose
Story: ***
Structure: ****
"The other two are self-contained paintings. The people in them are looking at each other -- the lady and her maid, the soldier and his sweetheart. Seeing them is peeking at them through a hole in a wall. And the wall is made of light -- That entirely credible yet unreal Vermeer light.
Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful, we wish our clothes could glisten and ripple against our skin, most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them, as are the maid with the letter and the soldier with the hat.
The girl at her music sits in another sort of light, the fitful overcast light of life, bu which we see ourselves and others only imperfectly, and seldom."
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