The Book Magpie's Nest

the more i think about it, the more attached to this book i get. the real review i was going to write for this (i'm not sure whether i will now) had a lot to say about loss, in particular the bereavement i suffered almost exactly a year ago. there's a lot i could say, but the more i think about this book, the more i think i don't have to say it, because someone else already has. which is pretty neat, all in.

also:

“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.”

and:

“The book was turned to the page with Anne Frank's name, but what got me about it was the fact that right beneath her name there were four Aron Franks. FOUR. Four Aron Franks without museums, without historical markers, without anyone to mourn them. I silently resolved to remember and pray for the four Aron Franks as long as I was around.”

and:

“I thought of my dad telling me that the universe wants to be noticed but what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us - not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us as individuals.”

good god, hazel, you are a girl after my own heart.