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The Implacable Order of Things
The Implacable Order of Things | José Luís Peixoto
5 posts | 1 read | 1 to read
Winner of the José Saramago Literary Award A mesmerizing tale from Portugal's most acclaimed young novelist. Set in an unnamed Portuguese village, against a backdrop of severe poverty, The Implacable Order of Things follows two generations of men and women as they struggle with love, jealousy, violence, loss, and—most of all—the inescapability of fate. With subtle prose and powerful imagery, José Luís Peixoto delicately weaves together the stories of his oddball cast-including a pair of twins conjoined at the pinky, a supercentenarian, a shepherd turned cuckold by a giant, and even the Devil himself.
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Delos33
The Implacable Order of Things | José Luís Peixoto
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This novel is beautifully written. Even though the primary theme is suffering, and all its characters suffer, their suffering is poetry. Their suffering is an entangled web with each other, with the passage of time, with the earth itself, and Peixoto just makes the whole thing read like beautifully heartbreaking poetry.

quote
Delos33
The Implacable Order of Things | José Luís Peixoto

“We‘ll vanish from each other‘s life. But we won‘t forget. And to remember will be the greatest suffering, to remember what we were wherever we end up and not to be able to be anything anymore. To remember speaking in the way that only we spoke and to remain with that language in our heads, that way of speaking which we‘ll never use with anyone else. Today I‘ll leave you, knowing that I‘ve always loved you for you having always been with me.â€

Delos33 A friend of mine lost his younger brother this week. Neighbors that my siblings and I grew up playing with and going to school with. This whole passage of the book about one brother losing another just really struck a chord. (edited) 5y
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quote
Delos33
The Implacable Order of Things | José Luís Peixoto

“And I said no more. Not because I had no more to say but because there was no way to say it, not even without words. There‘s no way to explain all that we‘re saying when we say suffering.â€

quote
Delos33
The Implacable Order of Things | José Luís Peixoto

“There is no hope, for we‘re too small, we amount to very little. We‘re a pine needle before a fire, we‘re a speck of dirt before an earthquake, we‘re a drop of dew before a storm, dear friend.â€

quote
Delos33
The Implacable Order of Things | José Luís Peixoto

“I think: men are sheep that don‘t sleep, sheep that on the inside are wolves.â€