Sexing the Cherry
“When my husband had an affair with someone else I watched his eyes glaze over when we ate dinner together and I heard him singing to himself without me, and when he tended the garden it was not for me.
He was courteous and polite; he enjo
He was courteous and polite; he enjo
yed being at home, but in the fantasy of his home I was not the one who sat opposite him and laughed at his jokes. He didn’t want to change anything; he liked his life. The only thing he wanted to change was me.
It would have been better if he had hated me, or if he had abused me, or if he had packed his new suitcases and left.
As it was he continued to put his arm round me and talk about being a new wall to replace the rotten fence that divided our garden from his vegetable patch. I knew he would never leave our house. He had worked for it.
Day by day I felt myself disappearing. For my husband I was no longer a reality, I was one of the things around him. I was the fence which needed to be replaced. I watched myself in the mirror and saw that I was mo longer vivid and exciting. I was worn and gray like an old sweater you can’t throw out but won’t put on.
He admitted he was in love with her, but he said he loved me.
Translated, that means, I want everything. Translated, that means, I don’t want to hurt you yet. Translated, that means, I don’t know what to do, give me time.
Why, why should I give you time? What time are you giving me? I am in a cell waiting to be called for execution.
I loved him and I was in love with him. I didn’t use language to make a war-zone of my heart.
‘You’re so simple and good,’ he said, brushing the hair from my face.
He meant, Your emotions are not complex like mine. My dilemma is poetic.
But there was no dilemma. He no longer wanted me, but he wanted our life.
Eventually, when he had been away with her for a few days and returned restless and conciliatory, I decided not to wait in my cell any longer. I went to where he was sleeping in another room and I asked him to leave. Very patiently he asked me to remember that the house was his home, that he couldn’t be expected to make himself homeless because he was in love.
‘Medea did,’ I said, ‘and Romeo and Juliet and Cressida, and Ruth in the Bible.’
He asked me to shut up. He wasn’t a hero.
‘Then why should I be a heroine?’
He didn’t answer, he plucked at the blanket.
I considered my choices.
I could stay and be unhappy and humiliated.
I could leave and be unhappy and dignified.
I could Beg him to touch me again.
I could live in hope and die of bitterness.
I took some things and left. It wasn’t easy, it was my home too.
I hear he’s replaced the back fence.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry
It would have been better if he had hated me, or if he had abused me, or if he had packed his new suitcases and left.
As it was he continued to put his arm round me and talk about being a new wall to replace the rotten fence that divided our garden from his vegetable patch. I knew he would never leave our house. He had worked for it.
Day by day I felt myself disappearing. For my husband I was no longer a reality, I was one of the things around him. I was the fence which needed to be replaced. I watched myself in the mirror and saw that I was mo longer vivid and exciting. I was worn and gray like an old sweater you can’t throw out but won’t put on.
He admitted he was in love with her, but he said he loved me.
Translated, that means, I want everything. Translated, that means, I don’t want to hurt you yet. Translated, that means, I don’t know what to do, give me time.
Why, why should I give you time? What time are you giving me? I am in a cell waiting to be called for execution.
I loved him and I was in love with him. I didn’t use language to make a war-zone of my heart.
‘You’re so simple and good,’ he said, brushing the hair from my face.
He meant, Your emotions are not complex like mine. My dilemma is poetic.
But there was no dilemma. He no longer wanted me, but he wanted our life.
Eventually, when he had been away with her for a few days and returned restless and conciliatory, I decided not to wait in my cell any longer. I went to where he was sleeping in another room and I asked him to leave. Very patiently he asked me to remember that the house was his home, that he couldn’t be expected to make himself homeless because he was in love.
‘Medea did,’ I said, ‘and Romeo and Juliet and Cressida, and Ruth in the Bible.’
He asked me to shut up. He wasn’t a hero.
‘Then why should I be a heroine?’
He didn’t answer, he plucked at the blanket.
I considered my choices.
I could stay and be unhappy and humiliated.
I could leave and be unhappy and dignified.
I could Beg him to touch me again.
I could live in hope and die of bitterness.
I took some things and left. It wasn’t easy, it was my home too.
I hear he’s replaced the back fence.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry
Labels: Authors, Books to read, Fiction, literature
Thursday, August 30, 2012 @ 11:26 PM / 0 daisies
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
“Indeed, what constitutes life? Day after day, we put up the brave struggle to play our role in this phantom comedy. We are good primates, so we spend most of our time maintaining and defending our territory, so that it will protect and gratify us; climbing–or trying not to slide down–the tribe’s hierarchical ladder, and fornicating in every manner imaginable–even mere phantasms–as much for the pleasure of it as for the promised offspring. Thus we use up a considerable amount of our energy in intimidation and seduction, and these two strategies alone ensure the quest for territory, hierarchy and sex that gives life to our conatus. But none of this touches our consciousness.
We talk about love, about good and evil, philosophy and civilization, and we cling to these respectable icons the way a tick clings to its nice big warm dog.
There are times, however, when life becomes a phantom comedy. As if aroused from a dream, we watch ourselves in action and, shocked to realize how much vitality is required simply to support our primitive requirements, we wonder, bewildered, where Art fits in. All our frenzied nudging and posturing suddenly becomes utterly insignificant; our cozy little nest is reduced to some futile barbarian custom, and our position in society, hard-won and eternally precarious, is but a crude vanity. As for our progeny, we view them now with new eyes, and we are horrified, because without the cloak of altruism, the reproductive act seems extraordinarily out of place. All that is left is sexual pleasure, but if it is relegated to a mere manifestation of primal abjection, it will fail in proportion, because a loveless session of gymnastics is not what we have struggled so hard to master.
At times like this, all the romantic, political, intellectual, metaphysical and moral beliefs that years of instruction and education have tried to inculcate in us seem to be foundering on the altar of our true nature, and society, a territorial field mined with the powerful charges of hierarchy, is sinking into the nothingness of Meaning. Exeunt rich and poor, thinkers, researchers, decision-makers, slaves, the good and the evil, the creative and the conscientious, trade unionists and individualists, progressives and conservatives; all have become primitive hominoids whose nudging and posturing, mannerisms and finery, language and codes are all located on the genetic map of an average primate, and all add up to no more than this: hold your rank, or die.
At times like this you desperately need Art. You seek to reconnect with your spiritual illusions, and you wish fervently that something might rescue you from your biological destiny, so that all poetry and grandeur will not be cast out from the world.
I have finally concluded, maybe that’s what life is about: there’s a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It’s as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never. Yes, that’s it, an always within never.”
- The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
(Credits by BooksActually; Recommends)
Labels: booksactually, literature
Friday, July 13, 2012 @ 8:40 AM / 0 daisies
The lover's dictionary
Cleave; v.:Rocks don't split at random. There is a weak spot in the solid-seeming surface, and if enough stress is placed there, it breaks.
Quintessence, n:
It's the way you say thank you like you're genuinely thankful. I have never met anyone else that does that on a regular basis.
Abyss, n:
There are times I doubt everything. When i regret everything you've taken away from me, everything I've given you, and the waste of all the time I've spent on us.
Basis, n:
There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you're in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself.
If the moment doesn't pass, that's it -- you're done.
And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it's even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover's face.
Love, n:
I love the way that all of the words that were used were so carefully selected. I love the way that I related to some moments and how there were moments I could only wonder about. I love that it felt effortless. I love that all of those words were so deep in the way that they cut my heart. I love that I didn't mind how much it hurt to read.
Flux, n:
The natural state. Our moods change. Our lives change. Our feelings for each other change. Our bearings change. The song Changes. The air changes. The temperature of the shower changes.
Accept this. We must accept this.
Quotes from David Levithan, the author of The Lover's Dictionary. Its' books like this that makes me fall in love with reading, over and over again.
Labels: literature, something I read
Sunday, July 1, 2012 @ 7:39 AM / 0 daisies
Books to read: on the list!
The laundry can wait. So can the dishes.
Our emails and mobile phones too.
We could sit naked by the window
if we dared, or we could catch the news.
I could watch you struggle not to doze
off during the sports announcements.
There will be plenty of time for sleep.
Since you asked, the plants are watered.
The light has stopped flickering, since
I replaced the bulb. Who knows, the dishes
might clean themselves after we are gone.
How about if we add an extra hour
to our day, so we may fill it with sighs?
There will be plenty of time for sleep.
For now, let us settle into the dimness
of evening, our talk like the passing
of a melody from one instrument
to another. Are you worried about how
early you would have to go to work
tomorrow? Take a breath. Look at me.
There will be plenty of time for sleep.
―Cyril Wong, Titling our plates to catch the light
The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan
“reservation, n
There are times when I worry that I’ve already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else.”
(credits to BooksActually Facebook Page)
Labels: booksactually, Fiction, literature, poems
Saturday, June 9, 2012 @ 4:01 AM / 0 daisies