The book Forest Dark wants to provoke questions about what is reality and why are we so given to believe that reality is firm and unbendable. There's a whole host of questions that the book is asking about that. Why do we believe that the world is only one way and as we see it? Why are we not open to the ways in which it might be otherwise.
Nicole KraussIn the beginning it was always the same. But. I kept trying. Then one day I accidentally moved as the shutter clicked. A shadow appeared. The next time I saw the outline of my face, and a few weeks later my face itself. It was the opposite of disappearing.
Nicole KraussYouโre lost in your own world, in the things that happen there, and youโve locked all the doors. Sometimes I look at you sleeping. I wake up and look at you and I feel closer to you when youโre like that, unguarded, than when youโre awake. When youโre awake youโre like someone with her eyes closed, watching a movie on the inside of your eyelids. I canโt reach you anymore. Once upon a time I could, but not now, and not for a long time.
Nicole KraussHe held my hand and told me a story about when he was six and threw a rock at a kid's head who was bullying his brother, and how after that no one had bothered either of them again. 'You have to stick up for yourself,' he told me. 'But it's bad to throw rocks,' I said. 'I know. You're smarter than me. You'll find something better than rocks.
Nicole Krauss