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Pause for a moment and furrow your brow.
Take a glance in the mirror.
Notice how this wrinkling was created by two lines, perhaps similar in appearance but certainly not identical.
This is precisely the premise of Namwali Serpells provocative second novel.
The sort of grief Serpell depicts is complicated and unruly, which makes it feel tangibly real.
Grief is perhaps the last and final translation of love, Vuong said.
This is the last act of loving someone.
You get to do this, to translate this last act of love for the rest of your life.
This translation is the furrow wherein grief and love converge.
The sort of time loop Serpell employs in the novel is certainly not new.
The Furrowsis, overall, a triumph.
Serpells deft prose and languid narration come through beautifully throughout the novel.
On either side of you, the furrows chewing, cleaving deeper.
They ate you up.
You were alone out there and the world took you back in, reclaimed you into its endless folding.
The mourning Serpell depicts is as deep and unpredictable as the sea.
But Serpells insistent, cyclical storytelling effectively negates these hypotheticals.
True to its title,The Furrowsis broken into two parts.
He is tormented by Waynes memory, and most likely intends to harm Wayne if he finds him.
Too, the parallels she draws between Will and Wayne often feel vague or incomplete.
It would be absurd to ask now).
Though either plot could have driven the book compellingly, the narrative ambivalence ultimately feels unsatisfying.
I dont want to tell you what happened, C insists at the books onset and several times thereafter.
I want to tell you how it felt.
Toward the end of the novel, the very line between life and death itself becomes blurry.
Sometimes when Im driving, I think, Did I just die?
No matter how many times Wayne dies, there is one constant: Theres never a body.
Its a pivotal moment in the novel, effectively killing off the other timeline where Wayne has gone missing.
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