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A review by deirdrekoala
The Inevitable June by Bob Schofield
5.0
Reading [b:The Inevitable June|20789464|The Inevitable June|Bob Schofield|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1392160811s/20789464.jpg|40127584] is like being in a lucid dream with really good-smelling paper. [a:Bob Schofield|7843320|Bob Schofield|https://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-d9f6a4a5badfda0f69e70cc94d962125.png] takes an unnamed narrator day-by-day through a surreal month—sometimes in paragraphs, sometimes in images, sometimes both.
Certain days in Schofield's June felt like my own dreams, half-remembered. In other passages, Schofield's imagery felt so radically foreign that I had to read the sentences over and over, building the image in my head as if from scratch. That isn't what sentences usually do, by the way—ask you/force you to build an image from scratch. Schofield doesn't give us a new phrasing of a familiar image or idea; he gives us a new image. For example, "This morning I am emptying my inner monologue over the grass." Or "Some blankets fly overhead as I swallow another closet."
In an interview, Schofield said the book is "not a secret message to be decrypted.” This is an appropriate, or at least relaxing, thought—why would I want to decrypt anything when I could be swept along through a hypnagogic visualization of June without forcing myself into Jungian dream analysis? I’m concerned about June 2014, now. It’s inevitable—sure—but it won’t be this good.
Certain days in Schofield's June felt like my own dreams, half-remembered. In other passages, Schofield's imagery felt so radically foreign that I had to read the sentences over and over, building the image in my head as if from scratch. That isn't what sentences usually do, by the way—ask you/force you to build an image from scratch. Schofield doesn't give us a new phrasing of a familiar image or idea; he gives us a new image. For example, "This morning I am emptying my inner monologue over the grass." Or "Some blankets fly overhead as I swallow another closet."
In an interview, Schofield said the book is "not a secret message to be decrypted.” This is an appropriate, or at least relaxing, thought—why would I want to decrypt anything when I could be swept along through a hypnagogic visualization of June without forcing myself into Jungian dream analysis? I’m concerned about June 2014, now. It’s inevitable—sure—but it won’t be this good.