I have a list I keep in my head of things (books, musical artists, etc.) that I should love, based on the other things I like, but don’t do it for me. In some ways it’s more interesting than the opposite list, of things that you’d never think that you’d like but you love. The reason I mention it is that, as you have probably guessed, this book is on it.
Every mention I see of Živković makes me think I would adore his work, and it’s not like those descriptions are false. Seven Touches of Music is a group of vaguely related slightly fantastical minimalistic short stories, in which each protagonist fleetingly catches a glimpse into a weirder world (in each of these cases triggered by music), which then (in most of these stories) fades again, leaving an unsettling feeling. Sounds like just my thing! But somehow, as I read each one, it faded from my memory just as these glimpses of alternate reality or deeper connections underlying the world did. I don’t doubt that the fault lies in me; I have the feeling that there were some beautiful subtleties going on that flew under my radar. Perhaps I read it at the wrong time, but it somehow failed to get under my skin the way that I imagine it was meant to.
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