"The Third and Final Continent" (Once more...)

27 October 2024: Today as I mowed the lawn, perhaps for the last time until the spring, I listened to a The New Yorker Fiction Podcast episode where the guest (Rebecca Makkai) read "The Third and Final Continent," a story I've known and loved for years. (The post-reading discussion between Makkai and Deborah Treisman is really good, by the way.) 

I've blogged about this story in particular and Jhumpa Lahiri a lot--with good reason, of course. There's just no one who writes like she does and I am always so moved and floored by her work.

Anyway, as I pushed that mower in the waning afternoon light, thinking a movie I'd seen earlier (We Live in Time--great performances, not-so-great film), a kind of warm melancholy settled in--somehow perfect for listening to this beautiful story.