The Elegance of the Hedgehog

by Muriel Barbery

“Camellias

imbues

Kakuzo Okakura, the author of the Book of Tea,

you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it’s been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you’re alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.

Can’t you tell when a person hates himself? He becomes a living cadaver, it numbs all his negative emotions but also all the good ones so that he won’t feel nauseated by who he is.

Sabayon

Taniguchi mangas;

Tea and mangas instead of coffee and newspapers: something elegant and enchanting, instead of adult power struggles and their sad aggressiveness.

repast

despot,

conatus.

abjection,

foundering

Exeunt

appanages

Ozu,

Ozu, The Munekata Sisters.

Wim Wenders

Tokyo-Ga?

capricious

ineffable

ephemeral

spectral

Tout vient à son heure pour qui sait attendre.

abnegation

prodigious

trenchancy

banlieues

indignant

(idem,

(Kokinshu)

Shan Sa’s novel, The Girl Who Played Go,

Hikaru No Go.

Racine,

peals

affected

complicity

obdurate.

redolent

soumaintrain.

Anna Karenina, Ryabinin,

accede

If you forget the future You lose The present

sordid

bijou

to boot,

But if you dread tomorrow, it’s because you don’t know how to build the present, and when you don’t know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it’s a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don’t you see?

That’s what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people.

haughtiness.

cursorily