Keep a tennis ball and a hacky sack handy for healthy entertainment in dull times and to relieve agression. Especially useful in small spaces. Surrounding flat surfaces and various objects are fair game. If you annoy the neighbors, count it as a bonus.
I read this novel a few weeks ago in a wonderfully successful attempt to procrastinate on school work. It is Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I found it, out of place, while wandering through the fourth floor of the library. It was sticking out on the top shelf and it caught my eye.
The novel is one of those self-aware narratives that I am so fond of. You could call it post-modern (but I hate that term). It is fiction, and the author acknowledges this in the narrative without neutralizing any venom. “Isn’t it true that an author can only write about himself?”
The compelling narrative is augmented with some interesting philosophical speculation, mostly stemming from Nietzsche and the idea of Eternal Return. The novel starts there before the characters are introduced, and, I’ll admit, I bit that hook like a stupid fish. But even if you have no interest in philosophy or existential speculation, cheating husbands and the investigation into human nature played out by the four main characters will leave you salivating for more. And wondering… Lightness or weight?
“What is the task of higher education? To make a man into a machine. What are the means employed? He is taught how to suffer being bored.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“The main evidence in favour of a life doing nothing but write & nose into other folk’s affairs only in so far as you need exercise, is that your dreams become long & coherent & beautiful.”
Ted Hughes
“I’m not fatalistic. Bank tellers are fatalistic; clerks are fatalistic. I’m a farmer. Who ever heard of a fatalistic farmer? I’m not fatalistic. I smoke a lot of cigarettes, but that doesn’t make me fatalistic.”
Bob Dylan Interview with Playboy 1966
the cold side of the pillow. irreverent poetry. screaming obscenities in large crowds. skipping class. the first drink. breaking minor laws. renouncing mistakes of the past. impromptu roadtrips. the scent of a woman. hot coffee in the morning. tea in the evening. reading a good book in one sitting. playing guitar till your hands ache. finally succeeding after countless failures. the smell of rain. learning something new. snowboarding in fresh powder. old friends who proves their worth once again. falling in love with a new favorite musician. or falling in love with an old one all over again. laughing till you cry. dirty jokes. daydreams.
—to name a few.
“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.”
Vladimir Nabakov
its been five years since I didn’t get to say goodbye to that ebullient little redhead. five years and I am older now than she was then, too young by far for anyone so beautiful to be lost to this world. she was like the older sister i never had. i find myself wondering what she would think of me now, what she would say. i hear her voice, that laugh, always.
for the gift of memory, her love for this life, and ours for her: in memory of t.m.a.
“The better work men do is always under stess and at great personal loss.”
William Carlos Williams