The book about constant motion. Almost every character we meet, and there are quite a few of them, is in some
way rootless; the question is ultimately is this by choice, by accident, or aspiration. Many of them have an unclear relationship to Tooly--the reader leanrs about who she is by who has been around her.
Fogg, the
loquacious nebbish who helps Tooly in the bookshop in 2011, is almost the only
character with any staying power: he was born in Caergenog and is unlikely ever
to leave it, though he considers himself a Parisian by
inclination. Humphrey – whose travels, we're told,
took him from the gulag to South Africa – claims to have been "cornered
by history". Paul seems to be on the run. Sarah seems on the
run from herself. The hero-worshipped Venn impresses on Tooly the
importance of being detached from the world and other people, and to a large extent, she is successful.
The book is semi-romantic, sometimes whimsical, and at times almost fantastical. Tooly is an orphan who manages to at once be shaped by and to overcome her past with the reader watching, wondering, and rooting for her.
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