Books read:
Elanor Dymott - Every contact leaves a trace
Shirley Jackson - Hangsaman
Louise Doughty - Apple tree yard
"The weekend after, I threw a fit as screechy as the couple in the flat above us and told Guy that I would never be able to finish the project proposal I was working on unless he took the kids out for the afternoon on the Sunday; and he did, without demur. This was the thing he never understood: yes, he would give me time to work when I demanded it, but my time was considered to belong to our family unit unless I signalled that I wanted out. His time was considered to belong to himself unless I demanded that he opt in.
Evene the nice ones don't understand what this is like. What's the problem? They say it sadly, trying to do the right thing. All you have to do is ask..."
- Apple tree yard, Louise Doughty
20131226
20131222
THIS IS A PARTY AND I'M HERE ALREADY AND I MUST REMEMBER THAT MY NAME IS NATALIE.
"The gap between the poetry she wrote and the poetry she contained was, for Natalie, something unsolvable."
"A knock on her door was as strange a thing to her as the fact of the door itself; at first she thought, It is across the hall, how clearly it sounds; then she thought, It is a mistake; she wasted a minute thinking of someone looking at the outside of the door steadfastly, as she looked at the inside, and meant to mark the next day whether the panels outside were the same as those inside; odd, she thought, that someone standing outside could look at the door, straight ahead, seeing the white paint and the wood, and I inside looking at the door and the white paint and the wood should look straight also, and we two looking should not see each other because there is something in the way. Are two people regarding the same thing not looking at each other?"
"I wish I knew why I am so excited all the time. I keep thinking something is going to happen. I keep thinking I am right on the point of telling someone all about myself."
""I used to think," Natalie said, "when I was a child, that I had only a limited stock of 'yeses' and 'nos', and that when they were used up I couldn't get any more and then I wouldn't be able to answer most of the questions silly people asked me.""
"From Natalie's secret journal:
Dearest dearest darling most important dearest darling Natalie - this is me talking, your own priceless own Natalie, and I just wanted to tell you one single small thing: you are the best and they will know it someday, and someday no one will ever dare laugh again when you are near, and no one will dare even speak to you without bowing first. And they will be afraid of you. And all you have to do is wait, my darling, and it will come, I promise you. Because that's the fair part of it - they have it now, and you have it later. Don't worry please, please don't, because worrying might spoil it, because if you worry it might not come true.
Somewhere there is something waiting for you, and you can smile a little perhaps now when you are so unhappy, because how well we both know that you will be happy very very very very soon. Somewhere someone is waiting for you, and loves you, and thinks you are beautiful, and it will be so wonderful and so fine, and if you can be patient and wait and never never never never despair, because despair might spoil it, you will come there, someday, and the gates will open and you will pass through, and no one will be able to come in unless you let them, and no one can even see you. Someday, someone, somewhere. Natalie please"
- Hangsaman, Shirley Jackson
"A knock on her door was as strange a thing to her as the fact of the door itself; at first she thought, It is across the hall, how clearly it sounds; then she thought, It is a mistake; she wasted a minute thinking of someone looking at the outside of the door steadfastly, as she looked at the inside, and meant to mark the next day whether the panels outside were the same as those inside; odd, she thought, that someone standing outside could look at the door, straight ahead, seeing the white paint and the wood, and I inside looking at the door and the white paint and the wood should look straight also, and we two looking should not see each other because there is something in the way. Are two people regarding the same thing not looking at each other?"
"I wish I knew why I am so excited all the time. I keep thinking something is going to happen. I keep thinking I am right on the point of telling someone all about myself."
""I used to think," Natalie said, "when I was a child, that I had only a limited stock of 'yeses' and 'nos', and that when they were used up I couldn't get any more and then I wouldn't be able to answer most of the questions silly people asked me.""
"From Natalie's secret journal:
Dearest dearest darling most important dearest darling Natalie - this is me talking, your own priceless own Natalie, and I just wanted to tell you one single small thing: you are the best and they will know it someday, and someday no one will ever dare laugh again when you are near, and no one will dare even speak to you without bowing first. And they will be afraid of you. And all you have to do is wait, my darling, and it will come, I promise you. Because that's the fair part of it - they have it now, and you have it later. Don't worry please, please don't, because worrying might spoil it, because if you worry it might not come true.
Somewhere there is something waiting for you, and you can smile a little perhaps now when you are so unhappy, because how well we both know that you will be happy very very very very soon. Somewhere someone is waiting for you, and loves you, and thinks you are beautiful, and it will be so wonderful and so fine, and if you can be patient and wait and never never never never despair, because despair might spoil it, you will come there, someday, and the gates will open and you will pass through, and no one will be able to come in unless you let them, and no one can even see you. Someday, someone, somewhere. Natalie please"
- Hangsaman, Shirley Jackson
20131210
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