20110411
WEIGHTLESS AND UNBELONGING
New books;
Alice Munro - Too much happiness
Joyce Carol Oates - Little bird of heaven
Margaret Atwood - Life before man
Sylvia Plath - Johnny Panic and the bible of dreams
Lorrie Moore - Who will run the frog hospital?
Siri Hustvedt - The summer without men
Miranda July - No one belongs here more than you
Doris Lessing - Ben, in the world
Books I've read lately;
Sylvia Plath - The bell jar
Miranda July - No one belongs here more than you
Lorrie Moore - Who will run the frog hospital?
Margaret Atwood - Moral disorder
Currently reading Ben, in the world. Finally found the sequel to The fifth child in London a couple of weeks ago. Waterstone's, I miss you sometimes. London, I miss you sometimes.
Alice Munro - Too much happiness
Joyce Carol Oates - Little bird of heaven
Margaret Atwood - Life before man
Sylvia Plath - Johnny Panic and the bible of dreams
Lorrie Moore - Who will run the frog hospital?
Siri Hustvedt - The summer without men
Miranda July - No one belongs here more than you
Doris Lessing - Ben, in the world
Books I've read lately;
Sylvia Plath - The bell jar
Miranda July - No one belongs here more than you
Lorrie Moore - Who will run the frog hospital?
Margaret Atwood - Moral disorder
Currently reading Ben, in the world. Finally found the sequel to The fifth child in London a couple of weeks ago. Waterstone's, I miss you sometimes. London, I miss you sometimes.
20110408
20110407
YOU DROPPED A HUNDRED AND FIFTY GRAND ON A FUCKING EDUACTION YOU COULDA' GOT FOR A DOLLAR 50 IN LATE CHARGES AT THE LIBRARY
(Sidebar to one particular reader: this post is ill-timed, but don't read too much into it).
I just realised, I hate talking about literature (or "just realised..."). I don't like listening to people talk about literature. I don't enjoy watching shows where people talk about literature (Babel, I've taken you on and failed so many times). I think it's because I love literature, books, words, but I hate people who read. And that is something I did just realise.
Maybe it's because it's so sacred to me. Maybe it's because it's so my own, and if I talk about it, I'll destroy it. Or they will. Maybe that's why I dropped out of Westminster. Maybe that's why I can't see myself ever going to university. God, the fucking panic I feel every time I think about uni. Being a student. All I want is to feel free. Uni, it feels like the smallest cage of them all.
It's not that I think you can go through life not being influenced by anyone. But I want to choose everything, absolutely everything, on my own. What books to read, what people to talk to, what movie to see. No curriculum. I don't want anything forced upon me. Also, I want everything. You can't have everything if you spend years doing one thing.
Having said that; I want to marry Jessika Gedin, which means I do enjoy listening to people talk about literature. But only if they agree with me, or vice versa. Which one could apply to every conversation one has had or ever will have in life.
I just realised, I hate talking about literature (or "just realised..."). I don't like listening to people talk about literature. I don't enjoy watching shows where people talk about literature (Babel, I've taken you on and failed so many times). I think it's because I love literature, books, words, but I hate people who read. And that is something I did just realise.
Maybe it's because it's so sacred to me. Maybe it's because it's so my own, and if I talk about it, I'll destroy it. Or they will. Maybe that's why I dropped out of Westminster. Maybe that's why I can't see myself ever going to university. God, the fucking panic I feel every time I think about uni. Being a student. All I want is to feel free. Uni, it feels like the smallest cage of them all.
It's not that I think you can go through life not being influenced by anyone. But I want to choose everything, absolutely everything, on my own. What books to read, what people to talk to, what movie to see. No curriculum. I don't want anything forced upon me. Also, I want everything. You can't have everything if you spend years doing one thing.
Having said that; I want to marry Jessika Gedin, which means I do enjoy listening to people talk about literature. But only if they agree with me, or vice versa. Which one could apply to every conversation one has had or ever will have in life.
20110331
AN EMPTINESS WITH A NAME: YOU.
"I am screaming, All these years you came first! You, never me! Who cleaned, did the homework for hours, slogged through the shopping? Did you? Goddamned master of the universe! Phallic Übermensch off to a conference! The neural correlates of consciousness! It makes me puke!
Why are you always so angry? What happened to your sense of humor? Why are you rewriting our life?"
- The summer without men, Siri Hustvedt
20110308
NO ONE BELONGS HERE MORE THAN YOU.
"In the reocurring dream, everything has already fallen down, and I'm underneath. I'm crawling, sometimes for days, under the rubble. And as I crawl, I realize that this one was the Big One. It was the earthquake that shook the whole world, and every single thing was destroyed. But this isn't the scary part. That part always comes right before I wake up. I am crawling, and then suddenly, I remember: the earthquake happened years ago. This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy to hope for something else."
"Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I've never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I will ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn't."
"I hated my job, but I liked that I could do it. I had once believed in a precious inner self, but now I didn't. I had thought that I was fragile, but I wasn't."
- No one belongs here more than you., Miranda July
20110220
LIFE COMES AT THEM FROM ALL SIDES
"For a long time I wandered aimlessly. It felt like a long time. It didn't feel aimless, however, or not in any carefree way. I was being driven by nessecity, by fate, like the characters in the more melodramatic novels I'd read in high school who would rush out into thunderstorms and lurk around moors. Like them I had to keep moving. I couldn't help it."
"I couldn't keep up my transient existence forever. I would have to end up with someone, sometime, someplace. Wouldn't I? But what if I missed a turn somewhere - missed my own future? That would be frighteningly easy to do. I'd make one hesitation or one departure too many and then I'd have run out of choices; I'd be standing all alone (...)"
"Why should being alone - in and of itself - be such a matter of derision? But it was. The alone - the loners - were not to be trusted. They were strange and twisted (...) They didn't love anyone, and nobody loved them. In my more rebellious moments I asked myself why I should care about being shut out of Noah's Ark of coupledom - in effect a glorified zoo, with locks on the bars and fodder dished out at set intervals."
"But I wasn't without social resources. I didn't take off my clothes and sing in public: I acted in acceptable ways. I smiled, nodded, made conversation, and so forth. I could do a good imitation of a competent young woman."
"She said nothing. She was spoiling things; she didn't want to. She'd been put in a false situation, and she hated that. But she had no other word to suggest - no word for herself that would be both truthful and acceptable."
"He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck, but she could tell that he was annoyed nonetheless. She was making difficulties where none existed. She was overstepping a line. But where was the line? She couldn't see it."
"My mother is in the middle. The names are written underneath: Jessie, Helene, "Me", Katie, Dorothy (...) In those early years of her photo-pasting, she always refers to herself as "Me", with quotation marks around the word, as if she's citing some written opinion to the effect that she is who she is."
"That was all quite long ago. I see it in retrospect, indulgently, from the point I've reached now. But how else could I see it? We can't really travel to the past, no matter how we try. If we do, it's as tourists."
- Moral disorder, Margaret Atwood
"I couldn't keep up my transient existence forever. I would have to end up with someone, sometime, someplace. Wouldn't I? But what if I missed a turn somewhere - missed my own future? That would be frighteningly easy to do. I'd make one hesitation or one departure too many and then I'd have run out of choices; I'd be standing all alone (...)"
"Why should being alone - in and of itself - be such a matter of derision? But it was. The alone - the loners - were not to be trusted. They were strange and twisted (...) They didn't love anyone, and nobody loved them. In my more rebellious moments I asked myself why I should care about being shut out of Noah's Ark of coupledom - in effect a glorified zoo, with locks on the bars and fodder dished out at set intervals."
"But I wasn't without social resources. I didn't take off my clothes and sing in public: I acted in acceptable ways. I smiled, nodded, made conversation, and so forth. I could do a good imitation of a competent young woman."
"She said nothing. She was spoiling things; she didn't want to. She'd been put in a false situation, and she hated that. But she had no other word to suggest - no word for herself that would be both truthful and acceptable."
"He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck, but she could tell that he was annoyed nonetheless. She was making difficulties where none existed. She was overstepping a line. But where was the line? She couldn't see it."
"My mother is in the middle. The names are written underneath: Jessie, Helene, "Me", Katie, Dorothy (...) In those early years of her photo-pasting, she always refers to herself as "Me", with quotation marks around the word, as if she's citing some written opinion to the effect that she is who she is."
"That was all quite long ago. I see it in retrospect, indulgently, from the point I've reached now. But how else could I see it? We can't really travel to the past, no matter how we try. If we do, it's as tourists."
- Moral disorder, Margaret Atwood
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