During the long, difficult delivery of her son, she almost died: "I imagined myself swimming in the lake, which became, against my will, a lake of darkness and then a lake of fire and then a lake without a horizon".
Those who take to the cuisine a little too well can stride it off with a brisk 3km walk to Crno Jezero (Black Lake), one of almost 20 glacial lakes dotting the Durmitor range that are known as gorski oči (mountain eyes).
Way deep in our brainstem, we yearn for the smell of a pine forest on a crisp autumn morning, the taste of sturgeon eggs scooped from a lake, the tiny, almost imperceptible caresses of a lover's fingernails when he thinks we are sleeping, even the satisfying press of a Chihuahua against the back of our knee, in bed, in the middle of the night.
It will create a lake almost 600 kilometres (375 miles) long and submerge dozens of cultural heritage sites by the time it is completed in 2009.
The lake covers an area of almost 2000 sq km.
This massive 120 square mile lake stands at an altitude of almost 15,000 feet, and is one of the largest freshwater lakes at such an altitude.
But in a country with an intricate network of almost 1,000 canals and thousands of ponds and lakes -- almost 25percentt of the Netherlands is covered by water -- that freeze over almost every winter, it is understandable why ice skating is such a popular national pastime.
Visit the historic fort at Louisbourg and take a boat tour of Bras d'Or Lake, the saltwater lake that almost bisects the island.
Seth's an irresistible storyteller; From Heaven Lake is almost a tenth of the size of his magnum opus A Suitable Boy, but it is full of the same wit and compassion found in that later fictional work.
Each is a marvelous lake of color.
