Let me talk about the style first. It is a fragmentary novel. It is a style I do not encounter often. But this one works. And it works wonders. As the genre suggests, it is a novel consisting of plenty of fragments. The reader is given multiple stories, and there is a common theme that ties them together, that of life on this planet being transitory.
The stories are also spanning numerous time frames: there are vignettes from the 17th century all the way to the present day. And there are a variety of characters: there was a Russian woman who was bored with her life so she decides to run away and ride the metro; there was the Polish doctor who assisted an old acquaintance to die; there was the couple who was vacationing in Croatia when the woman and their child disappear for a few days; and many more. Some story lines were more extensive and required a few vignettes spread out throughout the book to narrate, while others were very transitory. As a reader, there was also the sense that one was travelling to, just passing by, and so one never sees the entire picture but just a snippet of it.
Overall, I thought this was a brilliant piece. I absolutely loved the creativity and breath of fresh air it provides to a very serious topic, that of life and death. I absolutely recommend this book to readers that would be interested in grabbing something new. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
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