The Lake of One's Being

20 June 2009

There's something about the conviction with which these characters speak that makes my heart swell. It's been years since I've first jotted these words down, but reading them again brings up that same sort of fierce pride they had inspired then. Short of going to a shrink, sometimes a book can provide more support than you imagine. Although it'll be nice if a real-life person with such an attitude and such principles could speak to me like this.

Kundera, whether you liked him or not, whether you liked him then, but no longer do, you cannot say Kundera was the eighties. Steinbeck wasn't the thirties and Dickens wasn't the eighteen-hundreds. They were of their times but for the ages. Their writings are not products marketed for a brief time until they're out of vogue and discarded on the scrap heap. They're not silver scooters or hoola hoops, slinkies, Rubik cubes or breast implants. They're not trivial pursuits to be enjoyed when you think you need something new and amusing to fill the emptiness of your pointless job and your sham of a marriage.

- Seven Types of Ambiguity
Elliot Perlman

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"That's just stupid, that kind of thinking," I said, nailing her with my eyes. "Instead of regretting what you did, you could have treated him decently from the beginning. You could've tried to be fair. But you didn't. You don't even have the right to be sorry."
Yuki looked at me, shocked and hurt.
"Maybe I'm being too hard on you. But listen, I don't care what other people do. I don't want to hear that sort of talk from you. You shouldn't say things like that lightly, as if saying them is going to solve anything. They don't stick. You think you feel sorry about Dick, I wouldn't want your easy regret. I wouldn't want people saying, "Oh, I acted horribly." It's not a question of manners; it's a question of fairness."

- Dance Dance Dance
Haruki Murakami

1:44 AM;

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