End

This closes almost four years of reading the saga for me. I started this book in 2018, when I got it on the email, but I only read around 200 pages then. I barely touched it again until the quarantine began in my country in mid-march. I've read non-stop since. At times it was daunting, specially when there's the long essay focusing on Hitler, but I set a goal of 50 pages a day and I committed myself to finish the book on April 12, right before classes officially began for me.

It's been a great ride, all along. Sometimes it was ridiculous how much I could understand this man and how much his need to be alone resonated with my own. I've cried and laughed and I've been frustrated and irritated and bored and very entertained. It's just life really, but no life is ordinary when examined this close. The last part of this book was superb, with everything that happened to his wife and how he had to cope on his own and how utterly despairing and maddening mental illness can be.

I've been touched so many times with these saga. I'll miss it, just like I miss every feeling evoked by a good book. I'll forget most of it soon, as I always do with everything I read, I watched, I hear, because nothing seems to last inside of me. I'm fine with it. I know I'll remember how I felt and that's the only thing I truly strive for when it comes to art: feeling.

I resonated with this the most and this was the real jewel of the whole thing, the finally saying of what he had always been thinking of and I have done so myself, every day of my existence: "The only thing I don't want life for is to live it."