Claire Danes's Bookshelf

'Light Years' By James Salter
Light Years
By James Salter

A friend gave this book to me, and I was just so struck by how beautifully the sentences were designed. The narrative is meditative and poetic. It seems a very accurate telling of what it is to be married—that is, for a fairly privileged white person to be married. At moments I would just stop, amazed by how elegant Salter's prose is and how carefully he portrayed the inner lives of these people. The characters are estranged from each other, and I think maybe Salter is saying that it's impossible to ever know somebody—that we can't fully connect: As much as we struggle to and want to, it's not entirely possible.