Crush

Thursday, July 24, 2008

here are some beautiful excerpts from 'a home at the end of the world' by micheal cunningham.
multiple narrators, well-developed characters, brilliant and witty. a good read. :)

' but still, i'd expect by this time of life to have developed a more general sense of pride in my larger self. i'd thought i'd be able to say, if somebody asked me, just exactly what i was doing in the world.'
- clare

'"what i'd really like," i said, "is to know what happened to me. why cant i seem to make a living for myself?"
" what happened? you were there, you must have seen it. i keep thinking there must be something i dont remember. i've got a decent job, i have lovers and friends. so why do i feel so numb and separate? why do i feel like a failure? did you do something to me? i wont hold it against you. i just need to know."'
- jonathan, speaking to his father

'they(lights) were like holes punched in the night, leaking light from another, more animated world. for a moment i could imagine what it would be like to be a ghost- to walk through a silence deeper than silence, to apprehend but never quite reach the lights of home.'
- jonathan

' we didnt find necessary things to say to each other. i was no talker. i took things in, but couldnt give them back again, transformed, as a language. jonathan had enough voice for both of us. now there were silences that reached no logical ends.'
- bobby

'perhaps we dont recover from our first loves. perhaps, in the extravagance of youth, we give away our devotions easily and all but arbitrarily, on the mistaken assumption that we'll always have more to give.'
- jonathan

'the landscape touched you with its fertile kindliness, but didnt change you in any way. it never threatened to break your heart.'
- jonathan

'sitting on its four overgrown acres, the house answers the elderly mountains. it, too, is docile and worn smooth. it has been humbled by time.'
- bobby

'"hey, sweetheart, whats the matter? just a little fit of existential despair?"'
- clare, speaking to baby rebecca

'i nodded, and stroked rebecca's hair. i wondered if she might feel the tension and start crying. but she babbled on, undisturbed. our inner deceits dont create much residue in this world.'
- clare

' we walk out onto the porch and stop at the rail, looking into the deep black like two passengers on an ocean liner. on moonless nights this house could be afloat; it could be sailing through space. all that offers itself from the surrounding night is a starfield and the restlessness of trees.'
- bobby

'"oh, bobby. i wanted to be part of something that wasnt dying."
"you are."
"no i'm not. i thought i was, but really, i'm not."
- jonathan, speaking to bobby

'all we can see is alfalfa. crickets make their racket and mosquitos swarm around our heads, unable to beileve their luck. we stand there in a starry, buzzing darkness complete as the end of the world.'
- bobby

'there is beauty in the world, though its harsher than we ever expect it to be. its as unlike the autumn farm on my family's dining room wall as a bone is unlike a man or woman. as the blue silhouette of the house appears ahead of us i remember that home is also a place to escape. this is ours; we have it to run from and we have it to return to.
its black enough right now to see the future- the cold mornings and the long nights, the daily music. jonathan and i are here to maintain a present, so people can return to it when their futures thin out on them. we've been on our way here for a long time.'
- bobby

she's not here @

8:22 PM