Must I Go

A Novel

De: Yiyun Li

Narrado por: Jane Alexander, Alex McKenna, John Rubinstein

“One of our major novelists” (Salman Rushdie) tells the story of a woman reflecting on her uncompromising life, and the life of a former lover, in this provocative novel.

“Yiyun Li is one of my favorite writers, and Must I Go is an extraordinary book.”—Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion and The Interestings

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MARIE CLAIRE AND ESQUIRE

Lilia Liska has shrewdly outlived three husbands, raised five children, and seen the arrival of seventeen grandchildren. Now she has turned her keen attention to the diary of a long-forgotten man named Roland Bouley, with whom she once had a fleeting affair.

Increasingly obsessed with Roland's intimate history, Lilia begins to annotate the diary with her own rather different version of events, revealing the surprising, long-held secrets of her past. She returns inexorably to the memory of her daughter Lucy. This is a novel about life in all its messy glory, and of a life lived, by the extraordinary Lilia, absolutely on its own terms. With great candor and insight, Yiyun Li navigates the twin poles of grief and resilience, loss and rebirth, that compass a human heart.

With this novel she reached a new height

When I saw a brief introduction of this book, I thought the author might have overreached a little bit. She’s super talented, no doubt about it. But creating two protagonists with hugely different cultural and historical background (than her own)? I had my doubt about whether she could really pull it off. Oh boy, I was only happy to find how wrong I was! By using a language of the “selfish and sensitive,” she spoke to a higher order of humanity unencumbered by ethnic boundaries. Immigrant/minority writers are all too often “siloed” in terms of topics they deal with. Nothing wrong about that. But sometimes one wonders if at least some of them can go beyond wielding their ethnicity card. Well, Yiyun Li did it. And I couldn’t help thinking that she still has a lot more to look forward to.

The narrators are well chosen. Their narration would call for a little speeding up if it were a book less well-written. But here I enjoyed every unhurried second.

Digging into an unknown world to her to further understand her daughter.

As a mother, your love for your children are much greater than life itself. I love how Li put this concept together in this book. Even the strongest will remember every detail when it comes to the moment of loss. No matter at what age you are or what age your child was.

A grandmother trying to make sense of her daughter Lucy to her granddaughter and great-granddaughter before she dies. She lived a life with no regrets but there’s so much pain recalling the life Lucy had. The life she wishes Lucy could have.

pretense on pretense on pretense

There is a lady who is married, and the most interesting thing about her is that she sleeps around. The way she speaks you'd think she's someone worth caring about. It's only because she never has anything good to say and she leaves people feeling like they owe it to themselves to give her something good to say. Of course none knows she's just not capable.

Some slightly younger guy starts sleeping with her and yearns for her love. He is the most boring character ever written, maybe everyone has delusions of grandeur but we don't all get tricked into reading their diaries. He becomes just as hitter and still more pretentious than the lady he loves. His friends decide to get his diaries published and they're so boring they cut them down by two thirds.

Then one of the other ladies he slept with, who ended up having his kid, decided to get in on the action and remix. She married three times and never to the guy. She wanted to be just like the first lady, she thought she was. and she was also so boring about it.

They're all boring and pretentious. I'm sure I missed some kind of weird depth because maybe I'm boring and pretentious too.

Narration unbearable

I think I would have liked the story but I couldn't get past the first hour or so. The narration was unbearable.