Sleepless Nights Book

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hymn to the Night

A book written in the form of life. So concluded Geoffrey O'Brien in the brilliant introduction to this distinguishing literary feat. To narrow down that observation a bit, I'll say that this is a book written in the form of 'Sleepless Nights'. You know the kind of nights that opens up the reluctantly closed doors of mind and heart and let everyone and everything enter without any bias. The things we once loved, the people we still hate and regrets we are no longer regrettable about comes rushing through those nights and mischievously replace the idea of a peaceful sleep. And when that happens, there's a kind of rebellion on part of words to let themselves wander in any direction they feel like as if they are not going to be judged by the inquisitive stares of daytime verbs or adjectives.

Tell me, is it true that a bad artist suffers as greatly as a good one?

What can one say to that or numerous other thoughts like that one? A breakdown of that deceptively simple question gives us intense words like artist, suffering, good, bad and truth. And that's what I kept doing while reading this mighty little novel. Here a woman has decided to live her life through the strength and weakness of her labyrinthine memory and what follows is capable of leaving a reader awed at the soft swirls of beautiful prose and baffled by the honesty of a daring voice. Hardwick writes from the middle ground that emerges between indifference and compassion and gives voice to the unheeded reflections around us. Reflections which are personal, poetic, critical and to some extent, incomprehensible.

Well, it's a life. And some always hung about, as there is always someone in the evening leaning against the monument in the park.

To understand the Sleeplessness of these Nights in its entirety would mean to understand Elizabeth, which is quite impossible so one can take comfort in the fact that she has given us something which can be savored on a daily basis. Whenever you'll open a random page at any random moment, there will be a wondrous sentence or two to send you on an unusual sojourn of a fragmented past or an invisible present. So I admit that I'm not finished reading it yet because like life, this book also goes on.