You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked.

It's a confident debut that namedrops Goethe, Nietzsche, Judith Butler, Ai WeiWei and Mo Yen. It was inspired by the films of Wong Kar-wai and written as part of Sheung King's Masters thesis - and despite all this, avoids coming across as insufferably pretentious. That doesn't make it any less challenging a read though.

“In the Meiji Era, Natsume Soseki translated the English phrase I love you as The moon is beautiful, isn't it? He believed that feelings should be expressed indirectly rather than directly. And to him, that question—the moon is beautiful, isn't it?—perfectly captured the state of affection known as love.”

That is how the book reads to me. My normal galloping pace of reading renders the text inscrutable and opaque. (I know I said it wasn't pretentious, but I love this paragraph and how it fits into the larger story) If only you'd sit with it a bit it could bloom in understanding and significance, but I'm already 2 pages past that. The fault lies with me and my inability to slow down, reread and consider what is being hinted at here. In that sense it's closer to poetry and its need to be more closely considered. Right book at the wrong time for me.