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1mirrani
Everything happened from whenareyoucomingback to wherehaveyoubeen: brokers of the soul established religions, chartered accountants rewrote the Revelation of Saint John, tornadoes were named after female singers, earthquakes after politicians, fifteen Nobel Peace Prizes found their laureates and as many old women managed to escape in a small boat from the last leper colony in the world. Between a single whenareyoucomingback and wherehaveyoubeen three new welfare laws and three hundred satellites began to function, in Asia, three languages were declared defunct and in Chile three thousand political prisoners were eliminated with the help of a collapsing mine. p11
An example of what was to come. I wasn't certain at first about the jumbled nature of the book, but toward the end I realized everything was fitting into place.
The woman put scrambled eggs with onions and a mug of tea in front of me, sat in the far end of the table and silently watched me eat while she podded some peas or beans. For minutes, there was only the soft snoring of the night watchman, the patter of peas or beans in the washbowl, and the utensils clinking against my plate, as if these three sounds had filled the universe since the beginning of time. And the fork always clinked against the earthenware bowl when another pod had popped in the woman's hand. That's how the three of us played our music, filling the universe, until the switch bell began to ring, or until I finished my omelet or the washbowl filled with beans, but I don't really remember, and it makes no difference. p14
I'm starting to think that these things I make note of are all going to be longer clips, not because they're long winded, but because in order to experience the single thing, you have to have more of the whole.
When the three railroad workers came into the compartment, I quickly took out the book I had received from the priest so that nestling into the corner I cold pretend to be reading because I didn't feel like talking to anybody and people usually do not bother a person who reads. They don't usually ask him where he is going, where he is coming from and whether he has a family and things like that. A person with a book in hand is not actually present. There is no need to offer him cookies or anything to drink, because the book makes him invisible. p70
I actually had to sit and contemplate how true this was. And it IS true. I guess I didn't know why it was I relied on having a book with me on the bus when I wanted to be left alone, I just read it, even if I couldn't read it. It's a subconscious thing, I guess, 'cause now I know why I did it. :)
About being gay in Hungary...
"You live only as long as you can lie into the mug of anybody, and without batting an eye. And when you can't anymore, well, it's time to get hold of that razor blade." p99
There was a gay man working in the theater with the narrator's mother. They kept telling the guy he should get married, and he avoided it for the longest time, but he finally couldn't take it any more. Being gay wasn't good for the country.
Still, I dreaded the book, because I imagined it to be like the hollow of a Pompeian corpse with which everyone does whatever he or she wants. One could lie in it, naked, but one could also make a cast of it, using the cheapest plaster, and I would find that hard to accept. It's not that simple to let go of a sentence; and when I received the publisher's letter that not in the spring, because of budget-modification problems, but definitely in the fall, since the various literary readers' reports were excellent, and Eva Jordan, Editor wishes continued good work, I felt that my being buried alive had been postponed. p154
I think it's easy for writers to write about the feeling of waiting for approval of what is written. Such a visual feeling, though.
Some of the repeating of wording that is meant to make things feel repetitive actually makes you feel like you've lost your place in the book. And there are times when I simply can't figure out why the son won't stand up for himself in front of his mother. He just lets her walk all over him. That annoys me to no end. For this matter, he doesn't stand up for the woman he claims to love either. I can't imagine not doing that.
On page 205 there is an encounter with the editor, who is trying to have dinner with the writer and his girlfriend. He's upset at the way everyone's relationships are going and he gets furious. There is so much emotion here, I can't really include it all, it's pages long, but it starts with
For minutes, neither of us moved. I wished the mirror would explode, tearing us to pieces, but nothing happened. We didn't even hear our pounding hearts.
Nearing the end of the book, the jumbled nature of the story starts to make sense, you are more able to put things into a proper order in your mind.
And the blank notebook may wind up in more deserving hands than mine, I thought. Maybe the conductor will write his memoirs in it, I thought, /Touched by the Engine's Smoke/, or something like that, I thought. I fear that God looks more favorably on even a train conductor's memoir, swarming with spelling mistakes, than on anything I will ever write. I also fear that something that's not worth a shit in heaven is likely to be worth the same down here, I thought. Even if the reviews are rather encouraging. p223
Again with writers being able to write about writing.
Not even doing time in solitary confinement makes you as lonely as does a lie. p252
I know this feeling... and it's the final note on a book I enjoyed reading.
An example of what was to come. I wasn't certain at first about the jumbled nature of the book, but toward the end I realized everything was fitting into place.
The woman put scrambled eggs with onions and a mug of tea in front of me, sat in the far end of the table and silently watched me eat while she podded some peas or beans. For minutes, there was only the soft snoring of the night watchman, the patter of peas or beans in the washbowl, and the utensils clinking against my plate, as if these three sounds had filled the universe since the beginning of time. And the fork always clinked against the earthenware bowl when another pod had popped in the woman's hand. That's how the three of us played our music, filling the universe, until the switch bell began to ring, or until I finished my omelet or the washbowl filled with beans, but I don't really remember, and it makes no difference. p14
I'm starting to think that these things I make note of are all going to be longer clips, not because they're long winded, but because in order to experience the single thing, you have to have more of the whole.
When the three railroad workers came into the compartment, I quickly took out the book I had received from the priest so that nestling into the corner I cold pretend to be reading because I didn't feel like talking to anybody and people usually do not bother a person who reads. They don't usually ask him where he is going, where he is coming from and whether he has a family and things like that. A person with a book in hand is not actually present. There is no need to offer him cookies or anything to drink, because the book makes him invisible. p70
I actually had to sit and contemplate how true this was. And it IS true. I guess I didn't know why it was I relied on having a book with me on the bus when I wanted to be left alone, I just read it, even if I couldn't read it. It's a subconscious thing, I guess, 'cause now I know why I did it. :)
About being gay in Hungary...
"You live only as long as you can lie into the mug of anybody, and without batting an eye. And when you can't anymore, well, it's time to get hold of that razor blade." p99
There was a gay man working in the theater with the narrator's mother. They kept telling the guy he should get married, and he avoided it for the longest time, but he finally couldn't take it any more. Being gay wasn't good for the country.
Still, I dreaded the book, because I imagined it to be like the hollow of a Pompeian corpse with which everyone does whatever he or she wants. One could lie in it, naked, but one could also make a cast of it, using the cheapest plaster, and I would find that hard to accept. It's not that simple to let go of a sentence; and when I received the publisher's letter that not in the spring, because of budget-modification problems, but definitely in the fall, since the various literary readers' reports were excellent, and Eva Jordan, Editor wishes continued good work, I felt that my being buried alive had been postponed. p154
I think it's easy for writers to write about the feeling of waiting for approval of what is written. Such a visual feeling, though.
Some of the repeating of wording that is meant to make things feel repetitive actually makes you feel like you've lost your place in the book. And there are times when I simply can't figure out why the son won't stand up for himself in front of his mother. He just lets her walk all over him. That annoys me to no end. For this matter, he doesn't stand up for the woman he claims to love either. I can't imagine not doing that.
On page 205 there is an encounter with the editor, who is trying to have dinner with the writer and his girlfriend. He's upset at the way everyone's relationships are going and he gets furious. There is so much emotion here, I can't really include it all, it's pages long, but it starts with
For minutes, neither of us moved. I wished the mirror would explode, tearing us to pieces, but nothing happened. We didn't even hear our pounding hearts.
Nearing the end of the book, the jumbled nature of the story starts to make sense, you are more able to put things into a proper order in your mind.
And the blank notebook may wind up in more deserving hands than mine, I thought. Maybe the conductor will write his memoirs in it, I thought, /Touched by the Engine's Smoke/, or something like that, I thought. I fear that God looks more favorably on even a train conductor's memoir, swarming with spelling mistakes, than on anything I will ever write. I also fear that something that's not worth a shit in heaven is likely to be worth the same down here, I thought. Even if the reviews are rather encouraging. p223
Again with writers being able to write about writing.
Not even doing time in solitary confinement makes you as lonely as does a lie. p252
I know this feeling... and it's the final note on a book I enjoyed reading.
