before this book gets too far away from me {i finished it around 1:30am saturday morning}, i wanted to pass on a few of my favorite quotes written from the point of view of two different characters.
the twelve year old, paloma:
then when the new zealand players began their haka, i got it. in their midst was this very tall maori player, really young. i'd had my eye on him right from the start, probably because of his height to begin with but the because of the way he was moving. a really odd sort of movement, very fluid but above all very focused, i mean very focused within himself. most people, when they move, well they just move depending on whatever's around them. at this very moment, as i am writing, constitution the car is going by her tummy dragging close to the floor. this cat has absolutely nothing constructive to do in life and still she is heading toward something, probably an armchair. and you can tell from the way she's moving: she is headed toward. maman just went by in the direction of the front door, she's going out shopping and in fact she already is out, her movement anticipating itself. i don't really know how to explain it, but when we move, we are in a way de-structured by our movement toward something: we are both here and at the same time not here because we're already in the process of going elsewhere, if you see what i mean. to stop de-structuring yourself, you have to stop moving altogether. either you move and you're no longer whole, or you're whole and you can't move. but that player, when i saw him go out onto the field, i coudl tell there was something different about him. i got the impressing he was moving, yes, but by staying in one place...everyone was enthralled by him but no one seemed to know why. yet it became obvious in the haka: he was moving and making the same gestures as the other players...but while the others' gestures went toward their adversaries and the entire stadium who were watching, this player's gestures stayed inside him, stayed focused upon him, and that gave him an unbelievable presence and intensity.
anna karenina being reneé, the other main character's, favorite novel, she referenced a passage about levin out working with his peasants. she described levin's process about learning to wield a scythe to the point of almost detached effortlessness and then wrote the below:
freed from the demands of decision and intention, adrift on some inner sea, we observe our various movements as if they belong to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence. what other reason might i have for writing this--ridiculous journal of an aging concierge--if the writing did not have something of the art of scything about it? the lines gradually become their own demiurges and, like some witless yet miraculous participant, i witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that i neither knew nor thought i might want to know. this painless birth, like an unsolicited proof, gives me untold pleasure, and with neither toil nor certainty but the joy of frank astonishment i follow the pen that is guiding and supporting me. in this way, in full proof and texture of my self, i accede to a self-forgetfulness that borders on ecstasy, to savor the blissful calm of my watching consciousness.
and later:
art is life, playing to other rhythms.
and:
those who feel inspired as i do, by the greatness of small things will pursue them to the very heart of the inessential where, cloaked in everyday attire, this greatness will emerge from within a certain ordering of ordinary things and from the certainty that all is as it should be, the conviction that it is fine this way.
and finally, one more profound thought from the twelve-year-old:
so here is my profound thought for the day: this is the first time i have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. that may seem trivial but i think it is profound all the same. we never look beyond our assumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. we don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. if we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves, we would go crazy. when my mother offers macaroons from chez ladureé to madame de broglie, she is telling herself her own life story and just nibbling at her own flavor; when papa drinks his coffee and reads his paper, he is contemplating his own reflection in the mirror, as if practicing the coué method or something; when colombe talks about marian's lectures, she is ranting about her own reflection; and when people walk by the concierge, all they see is a void, because she is not of their world.
and not to misrepresent, there are also lots of humorous episodes, my favorite including a scene about a slightly misplaced comma, another involving two dogs who almost start humping in the hallway, much to the dismay of their wealthy owners, and several others which i won't spoil. so go buy the book. muriel barbery wrote it and she's a gem.
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