Love at First Sight is actually a 3.5 rating, as I admit, I really did not understand a single thing I read. I even read it twice. Okay, I lied, I do know this is about lovers and chance meetings (or were they), but at the same time, the subtleties are what make this book a slow read. Therefore, I took a second read. Then I read the publisher description and then got most of it.
I can then safely say this is not a onetime read. This is not a read where you just haphazardly read it. You need to be comfortable, distraction free and ready to take your time. Wislawa Szymborska, I appreciate the time it took for you to create this book, but I am not sure if Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak’s translations worked for me. Then again, I just might need a third read and a more suitable area for reading.
But the illustrations are fascinating. Now, I cannot say I loved them, but I appreciate the work of Beatrice Gasca Queirazza. The details are odd (why is there a snail on the person’s shoulder?), the images have a simplicity that is not simple by any manner, in fact, they probably are more complicated than one sees at first. They fall into the “take your time” category just as much as the text. At first, I almost found them off-putting and unattractive, but after the second read, I was appreciating them more, still I was not loving them.
Due to a page in the beginning of the book, I am assuming this is a single poem taken from a collection by Szymborska, Map: Collected and Last Poems published 2016 (several years after her death). And while my first meeting with this poet did not go smoothly, I do know I need to explore their work more (and give Love at First Sight a few more chances).
