"A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" — the title comes from the definition of "life" in a Russian medical dictionary — mostly takes place during just five days in 2004, during the second Chechen war, but every other chapter toggles back to 10 years earlier, during the first war, and within the chapters there are flashbacks and sometimes flash-forwards to a time decades in the future.
Curiously enough, to start things off, this chapter goes back to where it started: with traditional sketches on paper.
The battles at Shiloh, Chickamauga, Brice's Crossroads and Fort Pillow take place not in chronological order but as Henri perceives them, while other chapters stretch back to 1845, when Forrest first meets the woman he will marry.
There is a prologue, four chapters, and an epilogue in the novel; the prologue and the first chapter are told from Hazumu's perspective, then Yasuna's for chapter two, followed by Tomari's for chapter three, and finally back to Hazumu for chapter four and the epilogue.
That was the No. 1 takeaway from Lindsay Lohan's amply hyped interview with Oprah Winfrey, a "television event" broadcast on the talk show doyenne's Oprah Winfrey Network program "Oprah's Next Chapter" in back-to-back airings Sunday night.
I moved each chapter back and forth and ultimately tried to place them such that they informed each other, while building tension as the reader turned the pages.
But instead of propelling us through the story, these tempting hints simply leave us mystified, because at the beginning of the next chapter we are back to Square 1, trying to figure out who is talking, where we are and what's happening.
This chapter now moves back to the world where sketches are interactive and they can be experienced first-hand.
It's a chapter I come back to because it helps me think about the features of democratic movements.
