This story, told entirely through letters, follows Sybil Van Antwerp over ten years. She writes to everyone — family, friends, authors she admires, the dean of her university — and we also get to read the replies. The letters touch on the present, with tensions with her daughter and potential suitors; the past, including the death of one of her children; and more philosophical questions about life. I found it not so easy to get into at first, with all these letters woven together chronologically, but gradually the different storylines fall into place. Sybil’s life, as a woman who has had an important career and is gradually losing her sight, becomes increasingly touching.
“Now that I’m dying it seems much simpler than it ever did before. Living, I mean. There is no parallel universe. There is no “what could have been if only.” In some ways this has brought me a great deal of peace. In other ways it is bitter. How cruel life is only this long. Now that I see clearly, I’d like more time. It’s not to be. I can’t exactly explain it, but I feel the dying.”