Changing ways to see
1.
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The Famished Road by Ben Okri
2.
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The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
3.
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Transmission by Hari Kunzru
4.
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Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
5.
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On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Honesty
“It seemed to Howard to be the first time she had spoken to him truthfully, or at least in a manner that he experienced as true.” On Beauty Zadie Smith
A friend of mine asked me yesterday if I lie.
I asked him what is a lie?
He rummaged around his gargantuan brain trying to find an example my plebeian mind could conceive of… “Well if X tried something on while shopping which was hideous – would you tell her or lie?”
I had to point out that with opinion there was no absolute truth to be avoided, simply a denial of my own view. Which was irrelevant as of course I would tell her.
Is avoiding the truth a lie?
cathedral tunes
THERE’S a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.
None may teach it anything,
’T is the seal, despair,—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.
When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ’t is like the distance
On the look of death.
Emily Dickinson
On Beauty
Zadie Smith’s On Beauty explores the female identity by ripping open the insecurities of what makes us human – knowledge, appearance, awareness, culture, race and a need to belong.
Not a bride
It was last Saturday morning; I came to and staggered across the wedding gown lying in the middle of the floor; focusing on my breathing I splashed my face and raised my head to see a black eye staring back at me.
I am single.
I got the black eye taking the dress off.
Dickens
Brilliant writers dance across the page, genius masked by apparent effortlessness, a step, dip and turn. It is with reverence that I pay hommage to Dickens for twelve words which seems to echo every moment.
TALE OF TWO CITIES
IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens
