The Shadow of the Object - Chloe Aridjis

The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis is the tenth book I've read from this year's Booker Prize longlist, and at this point I don't think I can talk about any of these books in isolation any more. The longlist feels really cohesive this year, in a way I don't think I've noticed before, with the same handful of preoccupations turning up again and again across wildly different books. For me this one sits alongside May We Feed The King, The Renovators, and even The Vivisectors. All of them are books that are obsessed with the past, and with the way the past keeps bleeding into the present, refusing to stay where it's supposed to. There's a longing running through this longlist too, a kind of ache for some enchantment or magic that used to exist and doesn't any more. It's wistful. Almost nostalgic, but not quite, because nostalgia implies a kind of comfort and this doesn't offer that. Longing is really the word at the forefront of my mind with The Shadow of the Object. Longing for…