The Book Of Form & Emptiness
Grief has a voice, and in Ruth Ozeki's The Book of Form & Emptiness, it speaks directly to thirteen-year-old Benny Oh, a boy reeling from the sudden death of his father, whose musician's soul has left behind a world overflowing — quite literally — with the sounds of ordinary objects. As his mother, Annabelle, drowns in compulsive hoarding and her own unprocessed sorrow, Benny begins to hear the voices of things: a bottle cap, a forgotten shoe, the very book he inhabits — and seeks refuge in the chaotic sanctuary of a public library, where he encounters a wild cast of outsiders who each hold a fragment of the truth he is searching for. A Man Booker Prize-shortlisted tour de force, this novel weaves together Buddhist philosophy, the nature of consciousness, and the strange, cluttered beauty of contemporary American life with the deft precision of a master storyteller. Ozeki — a Zen Buddhist priest and novelist — crafts a narrative that is at once tender and formally audacious, as the Book itself becomes a living narrator, a guide, and a character in its own right. Rich with compassion, dark humour, and metaphysical wonder, it poses a haunting question: in a world drowning in things, how does one find the space to simply be?
Author: Ruth Ozeki
Format: Hardback
Published: 2021, Canongate Books
Genre: Modern fiction
Grief has a voice, and in Ruth Ozeki's The Book of Form & Emptiness, it speaks directly to thirteen-year-old Benny Oh, a boy reeling from the sudden death of his father, whose musician's soul has left behind a world overflowing — quite literally — with the sounds of ordinary objects. As his mother, Annabelle, drowns in compulsive hoarding and her own unprocessed sorrow, Benny begins to hear the voices of things: a bottle cap, a forgotten shoe, the very book he inhabits — and seeks refuge in the chaotic sanctuary of a public library, where he encounters a wild cast of outsiders who each hold a fragment of the truth he is searching for. A Man Booker Prize-shortlisted tour de force, this novel weaves together Buddhist philosophy, the nature of consciousness, and the strange, cluttered beauty of contemporary American life with the deft precision of a master storyteller. Ozeki — a Zen Buddhist priest and novelist — crafts a narrative that is at once tender and formally audacious, as the Book itself becomes a living narrator, a guide, and a character in its own right. Rich with compassion, dark humour, and metaphysical wonder, it poses a haunting question: in a world drowning in things, how does one find the space to simply be?