More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
It was rare that she was without a book—she favored nineteenth-century novelists: George Eliot, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens—but this was one of those times she lacked printed matter.
One morning as Gregor Samsa was waking from an anxious dream, he discovered that in his bed, he had been changed into a monstrous, verminous bug. —FRANZ KAFKA “The Metamorphosis” was one of her favorite stories. She’d read somewhere that Kafka couldn’t get through a reading of his own work without collapsing into fits of laughter. A deadpan humor born of incomprehensible horror. The literary equivalent of her favorite comedian/actor
She had no children. She was forty-one years old.
Her right hand wandered up to trace a scar hidden beneath her hair, by her left ear, a remnant of surgery to remove a benign tumor from her temporal lobe almost ten years ago now. She was beginning to realize that this had become a habit, and was less and less surprised when she caught herself in a reflective surface with her hand to her head.
When she thought about the significance of this tic, she figured it was grounding, reminding her, unconsciously, of who she was, her history, bumps overcome, and of mortality.
Holy fucking shit
The Hunger Games, a shameless feminist-TV-era reworking of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery,
They were well suited. She wanted a victory for him and wanted to feel a part of this victory, part of him; she felt he was part of her. But the thought sometimes occurred to her: Was the corollary true? Did he feel she was a part of him? She didn’t know. Sometimes yes, maybe, sometimes no. Did that mean no?
out of a net. There had been enough after all—enough money, love, mayonnaise. She needn’t have worried so hard and so long.
When gods and men wrestled, fought, and fucked; and the offspring of their union was sometimes hideous, sometimes wondrous. Sometimes the Minotaur, sometimes Hercules. Win some, lose some, get mauled, raped, and eaten by some. Your love is the holding of hands, the peck on the cheek, the Cialis couple in matching tubs. Your love is the tepid treacle left on Oprah’s hanky.” “What the fuck?” “When was the last time your knickers got wet just because your man walked into a room?” “I don’t know. I don’t think like that.” “Why not? Where are your lady balls? You need to remember why you fell in
...more
When a child started to read aloud for the first time, Emer still cried. It was like she had enabled the child to enter the human race and the life of the mind, stamped their passport to grown-up humanity.
The children must have sprung into action as soon as teacher and student left. They had cleaned the floor and desk, dried it with paper towels from the art section of the classroom. They were still so busy eradicating any evidence of the accident that they didn’t see Emer in the doorway. They worked wordlessly and separately, but in utter harmony, like a hive. Emer took a step back into the hallway so the kids didn’t hear her gasp and then stifle a sudden sob. She was so moved by the generosity of these little people, their natural empathy. Sure, these kids were often brats, too, but this
...more
