What pieces of writing
will be
with you forever?
The thing about being a reader is that every time you start a book, there comes the chance that you will be a different person than you were when you started it. Words have that kind of power, because when combined successfully they can serve as incredible epiphany machines.
Have you ever read something and had it hit you so hard that it never left your brain? I’m not talking about something that you made a deliberate effort to memorize, but a sentence or paragraph that was so utterly perfect you instantly absorbed it into your psyche?
Mine comes from Martin Amis’ Night Train, a very sad novel–not one anyone should read if they are unhappy or depressed. It’s about a police detective named Mike Hoolihan investigating the suicide of her (Mike is a woman) good friend and former superior’s daughter. The death makes no sense because by all accounts, the young woman, Jennifer, was perfect–model beautiful and rocket scientist smart with a dream life. All the forensic evidence points to her having killed herself, but why would someone so blessed commit such a desperate act?
Her father insists it has to be murder, but as Mike investigates she uncovers a secret life Jennifer apparently lead that would explain her final act. Except–Mike discovers–it’s all bullshit. Jennifer deliberately made it all up for someone to find, so her death could have a logical explanation–a clear motive.
The last sentence in the picture above is the one that will always haunt me.
Sir, your daughter didn’t have motives. She just had standards. High ones. Which we didn’t meet.
With these words I always remember that there is pain and despair in all of us. The question is, how we choose to deal with it. Jennifer gave up and gave in. And she was a fool to do so, because in a meaningless world we are free to find our own meaning–to seek out the joy around us. Despair is just one part of the equation. Happiness is the other and it’s there waiting for us if we look for it.
Mine is, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera. It’s a novel, but it’s so rich with observations about the human condition, especially emotional habits and crutches.
There was one section about how bad emotional habits are like lifelong gravity, vertigo constantly begging us to fall back into them. I have a tattoo representing that idea. It has and will continue to stay with me.
Dennis Lee’s poems– in particular “Suzy Grew A Moustache”:
Suzy grew a moustache,
a moustache, a moustache,
Suzy grew a moustache
And Polly grew a beard.
Suzy looked peculiar,
peculiar, peculiar,
Suzy looked peculiar
and Polly looked weird.
Suzy got the garden shears,
the garden shears, the garden shears,
Suzy got the garden shears
and Polly got a bomb.
Now Suzy’s face is smooth again,
smooth again, smooth again.
Suzy’s face is smooth again
and Polly’s face is …. gone.
“To Kill a Mockingbird”
Scout: “If you shouldn’t be defendin’ him, then why are you doin’ it?”
Atticus: “For a number of reasons: the main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold my head up in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”