Published in
Feb 12, 2021
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BOOKS I READ: The Transit of Venus (1980) by Shirley Hazzard. The book follows Caroline and Grace, Australian orphans whose lives are capsized more than once.
A deeply layered book, with enough folds to hold atrocious characters and saints, TToV is the kind of book that you have to re-read to scrape away at the depth of Hazzard’s genius. After finishing it, I had to find essays about how others grappled with its immensity. I found a handful. Matthew Specktor is “hard-pressed to think of a better novel” (The Paris Review, 2016); and Charlotte Wood’s extraordinary essay discusses her re-readings (Sydney Review of Books, 2015).
NB: trying out Medium’s shortform posts to chain my recent reads. Follow the chain; go to previous book:
