The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

There are some parts of books that always stay with you. I read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (David Mitchell) probably around ten years ago. I’ve never forgotten the image of the ladybird on the hands.

Picking slugs from the cabbages with a pair of chopsticks, Jacob notices a ladybird on his right hand. He makes a bridge for it with his left, which the insect obligingly crosses. Jacob repeats the exercise several times. The ladybird believes, he thinks, she is on a momentous journey, but she is going nowhere. He pictures an endless sequence of bridges between skin-covered islands over voids, and wonders if an unseen force is playing the same trick on him …