Trinity (2018) By Louisa Hall

"To come to the realization that the very aim of understanding an individual...might be inherently impossible."

I have to admit, this book was not at all what I expected. That is not to say  however, that I did not enjoy it. On the contrary, I loved it.

Louisa Hall's talent for poetic storytelling is truly wonderful, and the manner in which she builds a story of such intrigue and emotion around a subject so brutal is unavoidably and undeniably impressive.

Hall poses philosophical and intrapersonal questions that shape her characters, as well as the overall narrative of the book - it is as if the characters are discovering and learning about themselves as each page progresses.

Similarly to 'Speak', also by Louisa Hall, this story is told through a number of different accounts, each in their own setting and time period.

They all feel important and necessary to the primary arc - and Hall does brilliantly to develop her character's and tell their unique stories, whilst managing to simultaneously develop Oppenheimer (the subject of the piece) and his narrative.

"In Sanskrit, he said, the root for the verb to measure was the same as the root for illusion. The truth of this relation, he said, had been demonstrated by quantum theory. To measure any aspect of the world, he said, was to pull an individual unit apart from the whole flow of a system, a flow of which that individual unit was an integral part, and which defined that individual unit as integrally as its own characteristics."