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Wow. What a book. I don't even know where to begin, there's so much to unpack. Should I go chronlogically? Should I first talk about what striked tme the most? First of all, a month ago I had no clue the book, nor this author existed at all. I didn't even vote for this book in the club's poll so TMoR basically just fell into my laps. Thank god for that.

My first impression of this book, after I read the first chapter, was that it was super atmospheric. It felt like exactly it was late november -- frosty windows, gloomy skies, leafless trees, snowless ground.. The first scene in the train was very uncomfortable, and I think that that moment with the man slapping the old lady was a perfect introdution to the cruel, lawless world the story takes place in. I felt immense relief when Mrs. Plauf returned to her flat and the author rewarded me with cozy descriptions of her home. It felt so nostalgic -- reminded me of my slavic grandmother's appartment. I was hoping the story would revolve around her because I was so far really fond of her character.

With this book I discovered that I really enjoy apocalyptic books. It reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's The Road becaue of its desolate feel. But what I like about TMoR is that the apocalypse revolves around human-made destruction, societal collapse. There is no supernatural force driving the village to ruin, it's only themselves. To me that is scarier than some sort of hell opening up to swallow the earth.

I felt that throughout the book there was a recurring theme of meaninglessness(?) in life. I think that maybe that's what angered the people and what drove the mob into chaos. My brain's a little bit foggy and I'm having trouble piecing things together but something about the act of destruction was enchanting good people and somehow comforting them about their insignificance. I don't know, I will definitely give this book a reread because there are so many things I know I missed, so many connections I didn't make. Even with my half-understanding of the book I feel that it's very clever and will take another sit-through to fully comprehend. I didn't understand what it was exactly that drove my beloved Valuska to get swept with the mob. Maybe he thought that his love for the cosmos was actually silly and naive and that to embrace the chaos of the universe was what he was meant to do as he himself is a product of that chaos. Maybe it brought him reassurance about his meaningless existence and he succumbed to the force of entropy.

I think now's a good transition into what I think is the "melancholy of resistance". Because I don't think that Valuska's idea of space is silly. I thought it was super sweet, that here we have this man living an arguably miserable life in a horrendous village, but despite his enviroment he refused to live a life of misery, and instead he spends his time with his friend and being enamoured by the beauty of celestial systems. Naive, sure, but a necessary kind of naive -- a survival strategy. A resistance against the uncaring world around him. Same with Mr. Eszter -- I believe he went into retirement after find out that music was based on faulty calculations or something like that, and no one cared but him. looking at music as an objectively faulty system ruined the art for him. But at the end of the book he is heard playing on the piano. I think he realized that dwelling on music's failures brought no use. He simply played for the sake of its beauty.

At some point you must give up trying to make sense of the world and live for the sake of living. Resist against the chaos, even though there is ultimately no point.

? I think that's the message i got from TMoR. I don't know. There is so much more I want to say about the book but i think I'll leave it as is. Overall, stunning book. I can confirm that it's my favourite.