![]() ![]() This.’ She shifted the disgruntled ferret over to one side, unzipped her hoodie and shrugged off one sleeve to reveal her naked shoulder, onto which was tattooed the letter A, lying on its side. Like the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet. I thought you were this girl I met in the hospital.’ Why would a teenage girl even know of it? Why The Aleph? Borges’ original story, El Aleph, is a symbolic tale for adults that has been analyzed to death. One of the teenage characters in the story is called “Aleph”. ![]() A prominent theme is that of Jorge Luis Borges’ famous short story on the theme of infinity and space, The Aleph (1945). Ozeki is writer and also a Zen Buddhist priest, and this probably led to her inclusion of numerous themes, sub-themes, allusions, and references in the novel that relate to spirituality and metaphysics. His mother also has problems, the most serious of which is the strange behaviour of her son. This novel is indeed about a teenage boy, “Benny”, who gets involved with fantastical characters as a result of emotional trauma after the death of his father, resulting in a diagnosis of a complicated psychological condition. The whole thing escapes me, and worse, bores me. I simply cannot get into the head of a character if they are a child. I do not often read or review romances, family stories, or novels where the protagonists aren’t grownups. ![]() The Book of Form and Emptiness, by Ruth Ozeki (Coming-of-Age Fiction, Literary Fiction, Fantasy Viking Sept. ![]()
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