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The Limit
A brief, potent, and audaciously written novel about a husband caring for his dying wife, and the shifting nature of their relationship as the end approaches.
Anna has married an Italian seaman, Ilario. Beginning—and ending—at a point shortly before her death, the story told in The Limit draws upon her past and his future to focus attention, with increasing intensity, along the lines of narrowing perspective. In each chapter, dying becomes an appraisal of memory, a confession, perhaps, of secrets shared and not shared. In the ten years of the couple's marriage, the limits of devotion had somehow to be reached. And yet, when Anna can no longer speak, appears to understand nothing, Ilario feels at his closest to Anna, so old, ill, and wasted, is a child again.
The Limit , inevitably, is not about dying, but living. To read it is to have one’s perception and humanity heightened.
Anna has married an Italian seaman, Ilario. Beginning—and ending—at a point shortly before her death, the story told in The Limit draws upon her past and his future to focus attention, with increasing intensity, along the lines of narrowing perspective. In each chapter, dying becomes an appraisal of memory, a confession, perhaps, of secrets shared and not shared. In the ten years of the couple's marriage, the limits of devotion had somehow to be reached. And yet, when Anna can no longer speak, appears to understand nothing, Ilario feels at his closest to Anna, so old, ill, and wasted, is a child again.
The Limit , inevitably, is not about dying, but living. To read it is to have one’s perception and humanity heightened.
113 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1974
11 people are currently reading
844 people want to read
About the author
Rosalind Belben
9 books12 followersRosalind Belben is an English novelist. She was born in 1941 in Dorset where she now lives. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her novel Our Horses in Egypt won the James Tait Black Award in 2007. Among her other books are Bogies, Reuben Little Hero, The Limit, Dreaming of Dead People, and Hound Music.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 15, 2023
Pleasantly surprised by how much I got out of this.
April 28, 2025
really weird little stream-of-consciousness book about death and sex and illness and the grotesqueness of the body. aka everything I like to read about
there is a part where she compares a grave to “a giant muddy vagina” “yet the crude lips of it (mother earth) concealed with imitation grass. inserted upon soft titillating ropes. the country churchyard of her childhood yields a truly seductive cunt.” rosalind belben confirmed freak
there is a part where she compares a grave to “a giant muddy vagina” “yet the crude lips of it (mother earth) concealed with imitation grass. inserted upon soft titillating ropes. the country churchyard of her childhood yields a truly seductive cunt.” rosalind belben confirmed freak
July 16, 2025
One of the strangest books I have read. Coarse and difficult in its depiction of illness and death, but a most unusual marriage between an Italian seaman and an English woman several decades older that demonstrates just how inexplicable and enduring love can be.
A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2025/07/16/as...
A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2025/07/16/as...
February 25, 2024
This is one of those books people will claim to love but will NEVER read more than once. And as much as I want to give it some credit for having originality in both structure and style, the fact remains I, as a reader, need to be engaged by the narrative at some point. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're going to use stream-of-consciousness writing (and I don't see how better to describe this book) then you better be an absolute dream-weaving genius of prose and poetry. Otherwise, it's indulgent crap that thinks too highly of itself and exists purely to mask obvious mediocrity.
The idea is interesting. A non-linear story of an Englishwoman (Anna) who is dying of cancer and her Italian husband, Ilaria, who is much younger than her. The book focuses on their relationship, the age gap, the profound connection they have as he comes to terms with slowly losing her. It's the kind of thing writers love writing about (especially when utilising experimental writing techniques) but, for me at least, it fails to ever be truly moving or thought-provoking. I have described the writing as stream-of-consciousness but it goes beyond that into something more jarring and stuttered. The narration is scatter gun and refuses (deliberately it would seem) to ever become fluid or compelling. And even when it doesn't need to, it adds unnecessary punctuation to further stifle the reader. Then you have the intertwined thoughts of both characters as well as an omniscient third person. It's a style you're either going to love or find irritating.
It wasn't for me. But I know a lot people (claim to) like this kind of writing and I can certainly recognise its merits as a piece of literature so I would probably still recommend it. But I was personally hoping for much more
The idea is interesting. A non-linear story of an Englishwoman (Anna) who is dying of cancer and her Italian husband, Ilaria, who is much younger than her. The book focuses on their relationship, the age gap, the profound connection they have as he comes to terms with slowly losing her. It's the kind of thing writers love writing about (especially when utilising experimental writing techniques) but, for me at least, it fails to ever be truly moving or thought-provoking. I have described the writing as stream-of-consciousness but it goes beyond that into something more jarring and stuttered. The narration is scatter gun and refuses (deliberately it would seem) to ever become fluid or compelling. And even when it doesn't need to, it adds unnecessary punctuation to further stifle the reader. Then you have the intertwined thoughts of both characters as well as an omniscient third person. It's a style you're either going to love or find irritating.
It wasn't for me. But I know a lot people (claim to) like this kind of writing and I can certainly recognise its merits as a piece of literature so I would probably still recommend it. But I was personally hoping for much more
August 30, 2023
Rosalind Belben’s novel The Limit, first published in England in 1974, is about a couple who married late (Anna was 40 and still a virgin) and now, 20-odd years later, finds the wife slowing dying of a stomach tumor in a hospital, daily tended to by her Italian husband, Ilario, who loves her deeply. He is a sea captain, often away for months at a time, but never tempted to stray, and he spends the entirety of each day at her bedside when she sickens. It’s not clear how Anna spends her time while he is at sea, but she’s used to being alone and seems unfazed by his absences.
Seamlessly interweaving first-person narration from Anna’s and Ilario’s viewpoints plus that of an omniscient narrator’s, The Limit explores the physical and emotional marriage of two people at the end of one’s life. The book’s first half, in which their thoughts confusedly entangle, are reminiscent of Ann Quin’s Three or Tripticks, except that in the case of Belben’s novel, husband and wife love each other.
Between this short book’s beginning and end (it’s only 100 pages) are memories of their lives before they met, during their childless marriage, and emptying the house after her death. As an Italian, Ilario is referred to by his in-laws as “the wop,” and he won’t be missed by them, no matter how well he loved Anna. At the hospital, they both endure the usual degradations of a failing body cleaned by a patient, loving hand; he at the end of what he can stand. Depending on one’s age and marital satisfaction, Belben’s descriptions of Anna’s wasting away can be difficult to face—as much as one in love must, nevertheless.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
Seamlessly interweaving first-person narration from Anna’s and Ilario’s viewpoints plus that of an omniscient narrator’s, The Limit explores the physical and emotional marriage of two people at the end of one’s life. The book’s first half, in which their thoughts confusedly entangle, are reminiscent of Ann Quin’s Three or Tripticks, except that in the case of Belben’s novel, husband and wife love each other.
Between this short book’s beginning and end (it’s only 100 pages) are memories of their lives before they met, during their childless marriage, and emptying the house after her death. As an Italian, Ilario is referred to by his in-laws as “the wop,” and he won’t be missed by them, no matter how well he loved Anna. At the hospital, they both endure the usual degradations of a failing body cleaned by a patient, loving hand; he at the end of what he can stand. Depending on one’s age and marital satisfaction, Belben’s descriptions of Anna’s wasting away can be difficult to face—as much as one in love must, nevertheless.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
November 9, 2023
"Events had little order. It was left to us to imagine the drama."
Perhaps you learned about the conventional storytelling in school. You know the one that tells us that the plot follows a linear path through exposition, rising action, climax and then falling action. Well, you can through that static order of things right out the window with NYRB's latest novel from Rosalind Belben. In The Limit, the English author not only pushes the limits with the form of her novel, she also along the way with her personal punctuation and syntax to great effect questions the limits and boundaries of where one person ends and another begins in our intimate relationships. Where these limits intersect, Belben weaves her mystifying tale of Anna, an older woman who is on her deathbed, and her young husband Ilario. Bouncing around from multiple timelines and alternating narrators at the drop of a hat, The Limit pushes the reader to invest and pay attention and buckle up for the ride.
"These are our ends, joined, define our limit; it isn't a simple matter. I smile, hoping to encourage her: together with the change of life she catches dermatitis on the legs."
Drifting on a magic carpet ride, Belben navigates childhood, suicide, a scene with a cat that gives the part in Satantango by Krasznahorkai a run for its money, and body parts and bodily functions galore. There are times when I read books like this that I feel like I'm not getting everything that is going on even though I am really enjoying the writing. And the more I challenge myself as a reader to read such books, I get that it's the point to not get everything, definitely not the first time around. I sometimes like the easy way out of things, and books like The Limit by Rosalind Belben from NYRB pushes me just a little bit further out of my comfort zone. Thank you to Nick at NYRB for the recommendation and gifted copy.
"There was once a day, there is always one day impossible to rub from the memory."
"Curious, perhaps, but the disposal of pain, of persons in pain and intolerable ideas, occurs merely at points in time not relative to a real situation. When one is oneself involved, the thought is carefully, trustingly aborted."
"The bosom hath unto itself a oneness like a unicorn horn, n'er i cleft. She beamed. Teeth in the mouth creep. Dying can't be cheap. Wretched man, he's as white as a sheet. The tock clicks. Here we drain both blood and money, the price frightful. Nonetheless. She was wonderfully human: or ordinary."
"Don't you want to keep this? She asks. I prefer memories."
"He strode through gorse, bracken, heather. Ling heather. At a time, simply at a time, the moment never to be established, he arrived. The river was at full spring flood: that we know full well. Full, everything: replete, satiated."
"Ah disbelief. Or: I wonder what drowning can do to the memory."
"Our father which art in heaven. Mum says: prayers are heretical, we shall remain heathen, god bless this house and all who suffer in it. Is loving someone evil?"
"Your lungs burst. I see it all before me, love: ah, death is particular, and no death can be particularly nice. Dandelions wither in my bed, over my head. My mouth opens, black torrents pour through my purple lips, Drowning does this to the memory."
"Death is lived through: simple none survives to tell the tale."
"The brain plays tricks on her. She's afraid of losing control, supposing she did have control -certainly she valued it - over the myth in our minds. The child builds sandcastles in order to destroy them: let it be realized our constructions are there to climb."
"It is finished, it is not finished, the moment never comes, this bitter taste in my mouth can be the only end."
Perhaps you learned about the conventional storytelling in school. You know the one that tells us that the plot follows a linear path through exposition, rising action, climax and then falling action. Well, you can through that static order of things right out the window with NYRB's latest novel from Rosalind Belben. In The Limit, the English author not only pushes the limits with the form of her novel, she also along the way with her personal punctuation and syntax to great effect questions the limits and boundaries of where one person ends and another begins in our intimate relationships. Where these limits intersect, Belben weaves her mystifying tale of Anna, an older woman who is on her deathbed, and her young husband Ilario. Bouncing around from multiple timelines and alternating narrators at the drop of a hat, The Limit pushes the reader to invest and pay attention and buckle up for the ride.
"These are our ends, joined, define our limit; it isn't a simple matter. I smile, hoping to encourage her: together with the change of life she catches dermatitis on the legs."
Drifting on a magic carpet ride, Belben navigates childhood, suicide, a scene with a cat that gives the part in Satantango by Krasznahorkai a run for its money, and body parts and bodily functions galore. There are times when I read books like this that I feel like I'm not getting everything that is going on even though I am really enjoying the writing. And the more I challenge myself as a reader to read such books, I get that it's the point to not get everything, definitely not the first time around. I sometimes like the easy way out of things, and books like The Limit by Rosalind Belben from NYRB pushes me just a little bit further out of my comfort zone. Thank you to Nick at NYRB for the recommendation and gifted copy.
"There was once a day, there is always one day impossible to rub from the memory."
"Curious, perhaps, but the disposal of pain, of persons in pain and intolerable ideas, occurs merely at points in time not relative to a real situation. When one is oneself involved, the thought is carefully, trustingly aborted."
"The bosom hath unto itself a oneness like a unicorn horn, n'er i cleft. She beamed. Teeth in the mouth creep. Dying can't be cheap. Wretched man, he's as white as a sheet. The tock clicks. Here we drain both blood and money, the price frightful. Nonetheless. She was wonderfully human: or ordinary."
"Don't you want to keep this? She asks. I prefer memories."
"He strode through gorse, bracken, heather. Ling heather. At a time, simply at a time, the moment never to be established, he arrived. The river was at full spring flood: that we know full well. Full, everything: replete, satiated."
"Ah disbelief. Or: I wonder what drowning can do to the memory."
"Our father which art in heaven. Mum says: prayers are heretical, we shall remain heathen, god bless this house and all who suffer in it. Is loving someone evil?"
"Your lungs burst. I see it all before me, love: ah, death is particular, and no death can be particularly nice. Dandelions wither in my bed, over my head. My mouth opens, black torrents pour through my purple lips, Drowning does this to the memory."
"Death is lived through: simple none survives to tell the tale."
"The brain plays tricks on her. She's afraid of losing control, supposing she did have control -certainly she valued it - over the myth in our minds. The child builds sandcastles in order to destroy them: let it be realized our constructions are there to climb."
"It is finished, it is not finished, the moment never comes, this bitter taste in my mouth can be the only end."
April 30, 2024
if you’re sick and tired of the typical, boring syntax of the English language, + want to be taken on an audaciously bloodthirsty yet beautiful ride through lust and longing amidst death and subsequent grief, read this book. we’ve all been there, you know.
also appreciation for all the chapter titles which I must catalogue in chronological order by which they (each first) appear:
- THE PASSAGE OF A SOUL AT DEATH INTO ANOTHER BODY
- THE CARRYING OF A PERSON TO ANOTHER PLACE OR SPHERE OF EXISTENCE
- A CAUSE OR OCCASION OF KEEN DISTRESS OR SORROW
- A CHANGE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE SEA
- THE STATE OF TIME OF BEING A CHILD
- TIME THAT IS TO BE OR COME HEREAFTER
grateful to myself for randomly picking this up at the lib (<3)
also appreciation for all the chapter titles which I must catalogue in chronological order by which they (each first) appear:
- THE PASSAGE OF A SOUL AT DEATH INTO ANOTHER BODY
- THE CARRYING OF A PERSON TO ANOTHER PLACE OR SPHERE OF EXISTENCE
- A CAUSE OR OCCASION OF KEEN DISTRESS OR SORROW
- A CHANGE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE SEA
- THE STATE OF TIME OF BEING A CHILD
- TIME THAT IS TO BE OR COME HEREAFTER
grateful to myself for randomly picking this up at the lib (<3)
April 29, 2024
Kind of loved this. It pays no attention to consistent pov or syntax, it follows its own poetic path and is stunningly honest and visceral about illness, sex, death. A big yes from me.
'One sister's ears were stuck with plaster to her head. Another ate bananas on a sofa, never speaking. Innocent sisters: their rare red frocks stain the armpits crimson, the colour of the curse, they imagine they've begun it: or tumbling on the croquet lawn with a very foreign bird, suppose themselves impregnated.'
'One sister's ears were stuck with plaster to her head. Another ate bananas on a sofa, never speaking. Innocent sisters: their rare red frocks stain the armpits crimson, the colour of the curse, they imagine they've begun it: or tumbling on the croquet lawn with a very foreign bird, suppose themselves impregnated.'
December 16, 2023
This is not a book for everyone, but it is a work of poignancy for some. Its prose is lyrical and unique, its syntax daring and, at times, indecipherable. The narrative thread dissolves at times, but The Limit is moored by its craft, Belben’s dexterous manipulation of language, and her bald revelation of the intricacies of grief. This book will linger with me for a long time.
September 24, 2023
So I finished another new one from the NYRB collections, a novella long unavailable in print they say. I can't say that I liked it though. The smell of decay and death is ever omnipotent on each page, resplendent in between with brilliant flashbacks of memory from the perspective of both the husband and the dying wife, of the secrets shared and not shared of their conjugal life, and written in a highly conceived stream of consciousness style; so that in the end it becomes one endless blather depicting the consciousness of both the caring husband and the dying wife reaching the proverbial 'end of the tether'.
For a short novel, I can verily say that the novel is intense and heavy going in parts, especially when the consciousness of both individuals and also that of a third-person narrator, intertwine.
An utterly humane work, no doubt, The Limit encompasses death and life in equal terms. While it deals with death and the inevitable decay associated with it, it is also a meditation on the life they led till now, and throws a sympathetic insight on a couple and the limits of devotion they had reached throughout the twenty years of their married life.
For a short novel, I can verily say that the novel is intense and heavy going in parts, especially when the consciousness of both individuals and also that of a third-person narrator, intertwine.
An utterly humane work, no doubt, The Limit encompasses death and life in equal terms. While it deals with death and the inevitable decay associated with it, it is also a meditation on the life they led till now, and throws a sympathetic insight on a couple and the limits of devotion they had reached throughout the twenty years of their married life.
December 7, 2025
Have no idea how to feel about this - I’m not a thirty year old man grieving my sick, dying wife, so there are a lot of things I don’t understand. Some of the descriptions were absolutely beautiful. Some really great and poignant moments. A lotttt of talk about semen. Which like. Again, I’m not a man thinking about his dying wife, but it felt like too much. What a weird book. It did feel very human to have him talk about his disgust and devotion at the same time, but I felt like it was a little needlessly cruel in its descriptions of Anna. I understand cancer is needlessly cruel, and its physical effects can be really really hard to see and experience. But I wish Ilario’s descriptions of his wife were generally kinder. Also just a lot of talk about her vagina. Whatever. I’m glad I read it but would never recommend and would never read again
June 11, 2024
This is a difficult read, not only because the sentence structure is dense and complex (at least one sentence had two colons in it and that was one of the easiest of the complex sentences) but because the subject matter is graphically frank about death and the dissolution of the body. Yet, it's also a beautiful book and the devotion Ilario feels for Anna as he watches her body and mind deteriorate is quite moving. There's a powerful reality to the book that you can't look away from - you feel its morbid truth but also the ephemeral quality of aliveness.
November 16, 2023
"The carrying of a person to another place or sphere of existence. a definition of rapture, relative and definitive, or infinite, not finite, but final; people in moments of great emotion, places of the body in physical excitation, the flesh in parts of rapture, by another person or the same person made; spheres of departure, beyond a limit, reaching this limit, defining it, empirically; and then, knowing it; in a moment ending, or the moment ending."
October 9, 2023
4.25
This short book just amazed me. The writing, the flow. I read it quickly and it turned out to be quite an experience. A book who's narration kept switching from person to person until everyone was merged together. A book about love and death from 1974. I plan to reread this one.
This short book just amazed me. The writing, the flow. I read it quickly and it turned out to be quite an experience. A book who's narration kept switching from person to person until everyone was merged together. A book about love and death from 1974. I plan to reread this one.
Read
October 25, 2023A devoted husband cares for his terminally ill, incontinent wife, considers their strange and passionate love affair. Apart from an exaggerated interest in bodily function (to which post-modern writers seem curiously devoted) I thought the writing really crackled.
January 23, 2024
A beautiful exercise in style and meditation on grief, memory, relationships and gender dynamics.
The experimentation w syntax and perspective is mind blowing. This definitely begs for rereads in how complex the prose is as well as how short it is.
The experimentation w syntax and perspective is mind blowing. This definitely begs for rereads in how complex the prose is as well as how short it is.
October 7, 2024
me 30% of the book: wow insightful
me for the rest of the 70%: what the hell are you talking about…
me for the rest of the 70%: what the hell are you talking about…
October 9, 2024
She was crazy for this
July 5, 2025
i read something?
August 24, 2025
A verdant postmodern hospice novella, in verse.
September 3, 2025
An overflowing devotion that breaks the limit. I am left in awe upon reading a kind of grief I have never seen before.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews