I spent most of yesterday holed up in my room reading Kundera's Immortality instead of doing Portuguese, as I'd promised myself. I had never read any of his work before; I wish I had read him sooner. Here are a couple of excerpts that I found particularly moving.
He loved his wife and was happy with her; and yet in the depths of his soul there was a whisper of timid disappointment that their love never expressed itself in a more dramatic manner. He almost envied Laura for the obstacles that stood in her way, because only obstacles, Paul thought, were capable of turning love into a love story.
Then Agnes said, "I can imagine a person longing to take his life. Not being able to bear pain any longer. And the meanness of people. Wanting to get out of their sight and vanish. Everyone has the right to kill himself. That's his freedom. I have nothing against suicide as a way of vanishing."
She felt like stopping, but violent disapproval of her sister's behavior made her go on: "But that's not the case with her. She doesn't want to vanish. She is thinking of suicide because she sees it as a way to stay. To stay with him. To stay with us. To engrave herself forever on all our memories. To force her body into our lives. To crush us."
Vanitha, love, I haven't written to you as promised, and I'm very sorry about that. Things here have been busy, more or less from Day 1. At least, my mind has been energetically engaged from the moment I stepped off the airplane. I got here September 13th, and it's already the end of summer--good God. More soon, in a real letter, I hope. To which address should I send it?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're able to have this time to yourself. It's an incredibly envious position. Literature! And a room of one's own! As Virginia Woolf would have said, there's hardly anything more stimulating than the combination of the two.
--MP