I have reached the end of André Aciman’s Homo Irrealis Essays, and it has been a long journey. I finished it, and realised that for the most part, I have no idea what Aciman is writing about. As I’ve mentioned before, this is perhaps because I am not as clever as he is.

But I have persevered, and he talks about irrealis moods and uses examples from his interesting life, in books he has read, and in the movies he has watched. I have even taken the trouble of researching ‘irrealis moods’ but became more confused.

I have tried to explain it to my partner and got it hopelessly wrong.

“Something that happened, but might not have happened, but we expected it to happen, therefore it might have happened, but we did not realise that it had happened, and might not have even happened yet, but might still happen.”

I can take satisfaction that I have at least written like Aciman, even if it is entirely incorrect.

There are fantastic lines in the book that I wish I had written… if only I had been clever enough.