http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clKAdQnwJ7A
last week was beautiful. i didn't write about it, or even write it down, so i've forgotten most of what happened. but i didn't really want to write about it either - to quote one of my favourite pianists, mutatis mutandis, the music played was improvised on a certain night and should go as quickly as it comes. and i think i'd like to live a little more like that. life is fleeting, and the present might be sufficient if i let it. the things that are imprinted (fondly or not) on our memories will eventually return.
i keep seeing things around me that remind me of scenes in norwegian wood. in those moments, i always want to ask people if they've read the book; i want to talk to them about the thoughts i've drawn from it, that mean so much to me. i don't think i've ever had a favourite book before this one.
one of my favourite parts is when the girl the main character (Toru) loves talks about the boy she first loved (Kizuki, their childhood friend, killed himself). the three were usually always together, and toru always thought kizuki was charming and brilliant. but she tells him that when toru wasn't there, kizuki always felt inadequate and frustrated with himself, and was ashamed to be with her at those moments. and she tells toru that she always loved the weak side of kizuki as much as his strong side, but he never realised it. i love this idea.
the unbearable lightness of being is incredible. i don't think anyone could get it from reading it once. it's the thinnest but hardest-to-grasp book i've ever had. the author is incredibly gifted at creating scenes and interpreting them, and each scene is quite remarkable, each explores the human condition so brilliantly. it's so melancholic and despairing, but it's also so filled with understanding and empathy. we are all deeply flawed, yet capable of compassion. a quote from part 2 chapter 11:
"... human lives are are composed [novelistically], ... like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence (Beethoven's music, death under a train) into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life. Anna could have chosen another way to take her life. But the motif of death and the railway station, unforgettably bound to the birth of love, enticed her in her hour of despair with its dark beauty. Without realising it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.
It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious occurrences (like the meeting of Anna, Vronsky, the railway station and death or the meeting of Beethoven, Tomas, Tereza, and the cognac), but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty."anyway, this week has been dreadful. typically, it's been the doldrums of any good holiday - being bored of doing nothing. it makes me wish for last week, which is superficially ironic: einmal ist keinmal. been thinking and wondering about stuff too much, which makes me mopey and unlikable (a great detraction).
i get the feeling it won't be, again. and that is really, really terrific.
