6/11/2023 0 Comments Arctic summer galgutHe takes a special pleasure in thoroughly and minutely examining, as Proust did, that delicate cusp where sexuality is revealed. He cares very deeply about his homeland of South Africa. In reading his novels-slowly, I remind myself, because once I finish them all I will have to wait years and years for another book by this author I love so much-it has been a pleasure to trace out particular trajectories or obsessions. This was the special conceit of In a Strange Room: Galgut was so sure of his control over language that he could shift seamlessly between third and first person, between a distantly remembered Damon Galgut and his own self. “Happy and unhappy, he falls asleep in the end, and dreams about, no, I don’t remember his dreams,” for example. Damon Galgut almost feels like a secret too good to share with other people-as if giving someone else one of his books would somehow diminish the joy I feel when I take in his finely wrought sentences. Had I known how deeply his words would affect me, I would not have been so thoughtless. Or maybe it was when I saw a copy of The Good Doctor in a used-book store, with an enigmatic face looking back at me, and bought it without much thought. Perhaps it was when The Paris Review published the three novellas that made up In a Strange Room-I am sure I saw his name on the magazine’s cover then. In all honesty, I do not even remember how I came across Damon Galgut’s name.
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