Sometimes, when I'm still in the spell of a novel, I think "this is the best thing I've ever read." Then the enchantment wisps away and the book takes its place with all the other beloved writing in my life of reading.
Earlier this week I finished Lavinia. It is the story of 
a minor character in Virgil's Aeneid - "the unfolding of a hint" as LeGuin calls it. Ohmygod, the book, and there's no way out of using this cliche, took my breath away.
The best thing a novel can do, I think, is connect you to the intimate heart of the world. It always makes me cry. It's what I want to accomplish in my own writing. And now, days after closing the book, waiting for the enchantment to lessen, Lavinia still holds me to her world.
I wanted the book to never end. I wish I hadn't read it so I could be reading it for the first time. I want everyone I know to read it. I want to read the book again - I must study the sentence structure more thoroughly. I might have to actually buy it so it can live in my house, always. (I traded the library copy to my poet friend for her copy of Virgil's Georgics.) It made me wish I had learned Latin.
What can I say? Read this novel.
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