Before and After

I was lent a copy of Sarah Winman's When God Was a Rabbit, and last night, after work and dinner, I struggled into bed and nestled down to begin.  I wasn't quite, and in fact, still am not, finished The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but the anticipation was too great for me to sleep.  So at ten o'clock, when I should have been drifting into my unconscious subconscious, I was flipping through the title pages.  I read the first sentence.  Laughed and read it again:

I divide my life into two parts, not really a Before and After, more as if they are bookends, holding together flaccid years of empty musings, years of the late adolescent or the twentysomething whose coat of adulthood simply does not fit. 

This sentence was enough to get me engaged, and I read chapter after chapter until my eyes began to twitch.  Already, I feel as if I get what the gist of this book is.  It doesn't seem to have the volume, depth, or pointiness of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close but rather a simplicity slightly obscured at the corners with a fog of meaning.  This will certainly be an experience, anyhow.