“Seeing ourselves clearly is the project of a lifetime.”

Just finished The Nix by Nathan Hill. Loved it. Some of my favorite passages in recent memory.

Like this bit about life problems being like video game problems:

““Your philosophy came from video games?” Samuel said.
“I find this is also true in life. Any problem you face in a video game or in life is one of four things: an enemy, obstacle, puzzle, or trap. That’s it. Everyone you meet in life is one of those four things.””

Or this about what The Nix is and that we all have one.

“SAMUEL’S MOTHER told him about the Nix. Another of her father’s ghosts. The scariest one. The Nix, she said, was a spirit of the water who flew up and down the coastline looking for children, especially adventurous children out walking alone. When it found one, the Nix would appear to the child as a large white horse. Unsaddled, but friendly and tame. It bowed down as low as a horse was able, so the kid could leap onto it.”

The Nix would then ride the child over a cliff before they realized what was happening. The thing they loved turned out to be bad for them being the not so subtle lesson of the story. The theme of the book being that everyone has a Nix:

“It’s different for everyone. But it usually appears as a person. Usually it’s someone you think you love.” Samuel still did not understand.
“People love each other for many reasons, not all of them good,” she said. “They love each other because it’s easy. Or because they’re used to it. Or because they’ve given up. Or because they’re scared. People can be a Nix for each other.””

I think I found the book after finishing The Slip by Lucas Schaefer as something that is similar in style and scope: a work of fiction that’s steeped in the real-world and historical events, centered around crazy family relationships and the perils and wonders of modern culture, telling multiple interwoven stories that add up to a sum greater than their parts.

I am on a kick of these great fiction novels lately.

Currently reading Trust by Hernan Diaz.

Now that I’ve read this, I also want to read Wellness by Nathan Hill too.