I finished the book while being in Ukraine, which made me align with the author so much more. This here felt so relatable, it made me cry: “That evening, when the program was in full swing and you descended into the thick vapors of sweat and alcohol after reading your piece-two poems, two damned good poems projected straight into the intoxicated din of splotchy yellow faces congealed into one encompassing mass of flashing lights, or, more precisely, projected straight over it—holding on to the sound of your own, oblivious-to-all-around-and-subservient-only-to-words voice, a public orgasm, that's what you call this, but it does it for the crowd—every time and every place, even when they have no clue what the words mean, even in a foreign-speaking environment. You first discovered this at a writers' forum in one Far Eastern country where out of politeness they asked you to read in your native language ("you mean, it's not Russian?") —and you began reading then, in insult and desperation listening only to your own text (you were sick to death of their "Russian" even then), concealing yourself within it the way one slips into a lit house at night and locks the door behind, and midway you suddenly realized that in the frozen silence you were being heard: mova—your language, even though nobody understood it, in full view of the public it had concentrated around you into a clear, sparkling sphere of the most refined, crafted glass inside which magic was happening, this could be seen by all: something was coming to life, pulsating, firming up, arching into broad billows of flame-and then misting up again, as happens with glass that is exposed to heavy breathing; you finished your piece—enveloped, crystal-clear, protected, now that would have been the time to realize that your home is your language, a language only about a few hundred other people in the whole world can still speak properly—it would always be with you, like a snail's shell, and there would not be another, non-portable home for you, girl, ever, no matter what you do.”