Smell of cigarettes

Yesterday i finished reeding David Grossmans novel (i will have to return another time to write the title in English…) in hebrew it’s:

שתהיי לי הסכין

I was wondering if i was doing it right, i mean finishing a book. It feels like this event should be marked somehow. you cannot finish reading a book and then just go on with your normal every day activities. But that’s just what i did. And since i was thinking that i am not doing it right, i was trying to reflect about this book, about how it ended, how it fulfilled my expectations or not but every time i tried to reflect about it i found myself again reflecting about myself and my plans and my life but not about the book. Maybe i was just not drawn to reflect about this specific ending and this specific book. Maybe i do better reflecting on other books.

I liked Grossmans writing. And i am very curious about how this book was written. Two people writing letters to each other… did Grossman write one letter after another? And in what order? Did he imagine writing them or receiving them? Are there more letters that weren’t finally included in the novel? Did he visit the places he was writing about? Did  he really take a break from writing when this break was a part of the letter? Yeah… would be nice to know!

It seems like all the internet cafees in Stuttgart smell of cigarettes. So i have to leave. Three more weeks here in Stuttgart and then a short visit to Freiburg and then Israel…