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Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: Avoid shopping or making important decisions after 6:30 p.m. today. After that, the moon moves from Cancer into Leo.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

An unexpected surprise will please you today. This might come from a family member or it might be a pleasant change that affects your home or possibly your entire family. It will make you feel good. Whatever occurs might inspire you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions today. The moon is in Virgo.

Beauty, joy found in encounters with nature

As even the longest life is short compared with that of the great, wheeling universe, Jean-François Beauchemin “strives to… balance this brevity… by way of joy… or otherwise the seeking of beauty.” In this, his 24th book (translated into English by David Warriner and illustrated by Annie Konst), the prize-winning Québécois novelist and poet offers readers 66 observations — each no more than four pages, and most half that — he calls “a bestiary of memory.”

For Beauchemin, joy and beauty are most reliably found in encounters with animals both wild and domestic, and with the natural world, and this slim volume is primarily dedicated to accounts of these meetings, interactions that animate Beauchemin’s life and, indeed, his death, or at least his anticipation of it.

For example, writing about a fallen oak and an owl who might be the tree’s soul, he muses, “I wondered… if all the beating of wings, the nocturnal calls, and the sudden flights I perceive so clearly in me might be the expression of a similar presence… of a peaceful soul appraising its chances of survival for the day I absent myself from my body once and for all.”

Reminiscent of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, Beauchemin’s style is beguiling, as are many of his notions, and readers are certain to find joy and beauty within these pages, as well as invitations to ponder meaning.

Professor, student come to terms with love and loss in Kang’s new novel

Han Kang’s latest novel Greek Lessons is far more than a simple retelling of the age-old student-falls-in-love-with-their-professor trope. Instead, what she crafts is an intimate look into the lives of two people trying to find solace in the study of language as they navigate a world that is slowly slipping from their grip.

Set in Seoul (the city Kang calls home), a woman finds herself dealing with an egregious amount of loss. Her mother has recently passed, her ex-husband has gained full custody over her young son and she has lost her ability to speak. Having lost her speech once before as a teenager, and finding it returned to her by learning a new language, she attempts the same by joining a class on ancient Greek.

Her professor takes notice of her silence and solemn demeanour, reminded of a previous lover who was deaf. When his attempts to communicate with her through sign language fail, he seems to give up, though curiosity remains on either side: “There are times when they look at each other without speaking. Waiting for the lessons to begin… Little by little, his face became familiar to her,” Kang writes.

We learn that he too is experiencing a loss. That loss is of a strong cultural identity — his childhood having been split between South Korea and Germany — and the rapidly impending loss of his sight.