2022 reread notes: YEP, I loved it as much as I did when I first read it, and almost more so after watching the HBO adaptation, which wrecked me. I am still mulling over my thoughts on the adaptation because it wasn't at all faithful to the action of the book, but it somehow felt accurate to the spirit somehow. And that is surprising to me! A few lines that stood out to me upon rereading, especially mid-/past-pandemic:

Jeevan was crushed by a sudden certainty that this was it, that this illness Hua was describing was going to be the divide between a before and an after, a line drawn through his life. (20)

As Jeevan walked on alone he felt himself disappearing into the landscape. He was a small, insignificant thing, drifting down the shore. He had never felt so alive or so sad. (193)

After Clark had delivered the news of Arthur's death, Miranda remained on the beach for some time. She sat on the sand, thinking of Arthur and watching a small boat coming in to shore, a single bright light skimming over the water. She was thinking about the way she'd always taken for granted that the world had certain people in it, either central to her days or unseen and frequently thought of. How without any one of those people the world is a subtly but unmistakably altered place, the dial turned just one or two degrees. (225)