No spoilers, please!
TW: terminal illness
This year I'm planning to curb my book-related spending. Believe me, it's not a resolution,* it's a must. In Hungary, books became extremely pricey last year, and the "trend" continues. So, I'm not going to buy any new ones for my TBR. Actually, I'm not even going to buy any English ones. I'm only into purchasing novels with the intention of starting them immediately. Novels with special meaning to me.
A weird novel is about to arrive via post. Shark Heart by Emily Habeck is a unique fantasy, to be precise, the tag is rather "magical realism," a fact I still can't wrap my head around.
It follows the story of a young smitten couple who is forced to face a shocking diagnosis during their first year of marriage. The man is gradually turning into a shark. In my book, it's an allegory for terminal illness. (There's a long list of TW coming with this novel.)
Yes, this shark thing is weird. Losing someone to terminal illness is also weird. Absurd solutions in literature are quite the hack for raising awareness to ......... (?)
I keep deleting my noun phrase. A want to refer to a kind of thing which is a common experience for a ton of people; which is related to a plethora of repressed emotions. I hope this "shark thing" can make me think about my experiences, make me ponder life after you lost someone to a body-altering terminal illness.
I plan to report back on my reading.
*Oh, how I hate resolutions! My aversion requires another ranty post.
The picture I used: https://hu.pinterest.com/pin/137289488888300708#imgViewer
“ want to refer to a kind of thing which is a common experience for a ton of people; which is related to a plethora of repressed emotions.”
Hmm, we don’t really have a word (none that I can think of) for describing a common matter that is usually left unspoken, because it is unpleasant, not necessarily because of any stigma or taboo.
I guess we just refer to such a thing as an “unpleasant topic” or “painful subject” or “touchy subject” or “delicate matter” or “difficult subject” or “hard to talk about subject” or “thing often not talked about” or “thing left unspoken” or “something best left unsaid” or “trigger warning.”