Leonard and Hungry Paul: A Novel

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However, when it comes to books outside the sphere of translated literature, I’m very much behind the times, and I rarely pick anything up until well after everyone else. This is a beautiful story of love and of friendship that defies boundaries, two friends who are happy just being who they are despite those around them that may judge. In terms of a plot, well, there’s Leonard and Shelley, of course, and the preparations for Grace’s wedding form a kind of backbone to the novel, but you’ll be disappointed if you’re looking for dramas, with not even a hint of a real disaster on the Dublin horizon. I have been saving it since then because all reports suggested that it was such a gentle, calm book that I wanted to find a time where things were quiet enough for me to savour it – where my outer circumstances would match my reading material. These 2 men are sweet, unconcerned about life, play board games together, and see the world differently.

Their friendship was not just one of convenience between two quiet, solitary men with few other options, it was a pact. Sometimes it is essential to read a book like Leonard and Hungry Paul as it changes your perspective and makes you smile in the process. Here the novel struggles to escape the fate of all books about unexciting people: they’re not exciting.But he had now become awakened by the thought that, no matter how insignificant he was when compared to the night sky, he remained subject to the same elemental forces of expansion. Hungry Paul, who still happily lives with his parents, finds himself considering changing his own habits in light of his only friend looking to expand his own world beyond their regular board game nights. Left alone in the family home, he starts to slowly examine his life, and when he meets Shelley, a woman at work, it appears that he’s about to enter a new phase. One of the most influential statements in literary history was perhaps Tolstoy’s claim that all happy families are alike, implying that they are unworthy of being written about. I really teetered toward 5stars here, but the ending didn't blow my skirt up as much as the entire rest of the book.

He didn’t have to decide which of a patient’s limbs to amputate first, or where to invest the life savings of a company’s pensioners. Die titelgebenden Protagonisten dieses Romans Leonard und Paul sind so sympathisch, dass ich dem Autor literarische Mängel wie das gelegentliche Überschreiten der Kitschgrenze verzeihe. His mother quickly identified his character (in a sentence which in turn sets the scene for the strength of the observational writing). If I'm honest, I am probably closest to Grace, who spends her days being super-efficient at work but needs a boyfriend she can trust enough to be a flake with at home.Who remind us that silence can be healing, and that a steady friend supports just by being a friend.