The new novel by one of the most interesting Irish writers, Anne Enright, winner of the Booker Prize, is about love and passion, about delusions and desires, about how longing for strong feelings can turn into fatigue from life. Critics have dubbed the novel a modern Madame Bovary, and this comparison is not at all excessive. Anne Enright takes the banal theme of adultery and elevates it to the heights of Greek tragedy. Where does an empty affair end and real attraction begin? When does sympathy become compassion? Why is jealousy more disturbing than tenderness? A certain woman, a certain man, prosperous residents of Dublin, learn to put up with each other and with circumstances, learn to accept people who were strangers just yesterday. And the woman talks about it as best she can, sometimes shockingly frankly, trying to keep silent about her own weaknesses, but invariably giving herself away. The writer herself ironically characterizes her book as “an intellectual variation of a sentimental Hollywood movie.” Or maybe this is a story about unearthly love?.. Or about life that flashed by like an old forgotten waltz that happened only once?..