“In the end, each life is no more than the sum of contingent facts, a chronicle of chance intersections, of flukes, of random events that divulge nothing but their own lack of purpose.”― Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy What irritates Paul Auster most is when people think that The New York Trilogy is a detective story.... Continue Reading →
“He was the great love of her life you know.''Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly, 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.”― Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love I put 'Love in a Cold Climate' on my #theclassicsclub list and I thought writing a review for the first book will refresh my memory of the plot and... Continue Reading →
"Please gather up your belongings - you won't be returning to this flight.""But.. but... what did I do?" Professor Oon asked, suddenly feeling uneasy."Don't worry, you didn't do anything. But we need to get you off this plane now. (...) We are escorting you directly to Mount Elizabeth Hospital. You have been requested to attend... Continue Reading →
“All of a sudden, in the good-natured child, the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater.”Emile Zola, Nana Nana Coupeau was eighteen at the beginning of the... Continue Reading →
I found The Classics Club while browsing through book blogs and found it brilliant! As you can guess by the name, it's a book club for people who love (or try to understand) classics. You can join the club by setting a goal to read 50/100/200 classics in five years. Setting a goal for my... Continue Reading →
Everything depended, my sleeping peacefully, my being able to work, my confidence in myself, upon the only bond by which I held her, the words, extracted not always quickly from her, that she loved me.Alfred Hayes, 'In Love' Through our narrator, a 40-year old man living in New York in 1950s, we are taken into... Continue Reading →
“Justice. I've heard that word. I tried it out. I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.”― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys, a Dominican-born British author, wrote this story as a response to Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre'. In... Continue Reading →
“Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life... My precept is, "Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something".”― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South When we talk about novels set in the Victorian era written by female authors, Jane Austen and... Continue Reading →
“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”― Jack Kerouac, On the Road My trip to California was the last trip I took as a single woman. I... Continue Reading →
“I have finally concluded, maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within... Continue Reading →
