Intimate Notebooks i. urmeneta
“Tamina has the impression that a single outsider’s glance can destroy the entire worth of her intimate notebooks, and Goethe is convinced that a single glance of a single human being which fails to fall on lines written by Goethe calls into question Goethe’s very existence. The difference between Tamina and Goethe is the difference between human being and writer.” Milan Kundera
Chapter 1: Love & Other tragedies
Lack of exercise might have been the reason that, when he had his first radiation treatment for the cancer in his groin, his legs swelled up like two dead seals on a beach and then turned as hard as lumber.
tinkers, p. harding
Before he was bedridden, he walked as if he were an amputee from a war that predated modern prosthetics; he tottered as if two hardwood legs hinged with iron pins were buckled to his waist. tinkers, p. harding
When his wife touched his legs at night in bed, through his pajamas, she thought of oak or maple and had to make herself think of something else in order not to imagine going down to his workshop in the basement and getting sandpaper and stain and sanding his legs and staining them with a brush, as if they belonged to a piece of furniture. tinkers, p. harding
Once, she snorted out loud, trying to stifle a laugh, when she thought, My husband, the table. She felt so bad afterward that she wept. tinkers, p. harding
Chapter 2: Body, Sex, & Alcohol
“I mean, I’m not the only one who has trouble figuring out what men are all about. But I’m working at it, a little at a time.” Midori brought over a box of Marlboros and lit one up. “When you start at zero, you’ve got a lot to learn.” “I wouldn’t be surprised.” “Oh, I almost forgot! You want to burn a stick of incense for my father?” norwegian wood, h. murakami
I followed Midori to the room with the Buddhist altar, lit a stick of incense in front of her father’s photo, and brought my hands together. “Know what I did the other day?” Midori asked. “I got all naked in front of my father’s picture. Took off every stitch of clothing and let him have a good, long look. Kind of in a yoga postion. Like ‘Here, Daddy, these are my tits, and this is my cunt.’” norwegian wood, h. murakami
“Why in the hell would you do something like that?” I asked. “I don’t know, I just wanted to show him. I mean, half of me comes from his sperm, right? Why shouldn’t I show him? ‘Here’s the daughter you made.’” norwegian wood, h. murakami
“I was a little drunk at the time. I suppose that had something to do with it.� norwegian wood, h. murakami
Chapter 3: Moments of Disconnect
“So why don’t you marry him then?” Rahel said petulantly. Time stopped on the red staircase. Estha stopped. Baby Kochamma stopped. “Rahel,” Ammu said. the god of small things, a. roy
Rahel froze. She was desperately sorry for what she had said. She didn’t know where those words had come from. She didn’t know that she’d had them in her. But they were out now, and wouldn’t go back in. They hung about that red staircase like clerks in a government office. Some stood, some sat and shivered their legs. the god of small things, a. roy
“Rahel,” Ammu said, “do you realize what you have just done?” Frightened eyes and a fountain looked back at Ammu. “It’s alright. Don’t be scared,” Ammu said. “Just answer me. Do you?” “What?” Rahel said in the smallest voice she had. “Realize what you’ve just done?” Ammu said. the god of small things, a. roy
“D’you know what happens when you hurt people?” Ammu said. “When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.” the god of small things, a. roy
Chapter 4: Anxieties and Disorders
Watching him operate on a steak like that, carving straight slice and then dividing it into neat cubes, made her think of the diagram of the planned cow at the front of one of her cookbooks: the cow with lines on it and labels to show you from which part of the cow all the different cuts were taken. edible woman, m. atwood
What they were eating now was from some part of the back, she thought: cut on the dotted line. She could see rows of butchers somewhere in a large room, a butcher school, sitting at tables, clothed in spotless white, each with a pair of kindergarten scissors, cutting out steaks and ribs and roasts from the stacks of brown-paper cow-shapes before them. edible woman, m. atwood
The cow in the book, she recalled, was drawn with eyes and horns and an udder. It stood there quite naturally, not at all disturbed by the peculiar markings painted on its hide. edible woman, m. atwood
Maybe with lots of careful research they’ll eventually be able to breed them, she thought so that they’re born already ruled and measured. edible woman, m. atwood
Chapter 5: Shyness
Winnie was well-known on the Hill for moving from place to place without being seen. No one knew how she managed this or why she found it necessary. white noise, d. delillo
Maybe she was self-conscious about her awkward frame, her craning look and odd lope. Maybe she had a phobia concerning open spaces, although the spaces at the college were mainly snug and quaint. white noise, d. delillo
Perhaps the world of people and things had such an impact on her, struck her with the force of some rough and naked body - made her blush in fact - that she found it easier to avoid frequent contact. Maybe she was tired of being called brilliant. white noise, d. delillo
... I said, “Brilliant people never think of the lives they smash, being brilliant.� I watched her blush. She used both hands to pull her knit cap down over her ears. white noise, d. delillo
Chapter 7: On Settling
The temptations of the theaters and the variety shows were forgotten, and Kristyna went with the student and entered his attic room. At first she experienced the same disappointment she had felt upon entering the King Wenceslaus. the book of laughter and forgetting, m. kundera
It was not an apartment, merely a tiny room with no anteroom and no furniture but a daybed and a desk. But she was no longer sure of her judgments. She had entered into a world with a mysterious scale of values she did not understand. the book of laughter and forgetting, m. kundera
So she rapidly reconciled herself to this uncomfortable and filthy room and called on all her feminine talent to make herself feel at home in it. the book of laughter and forgetting, m. kundera
The student invited her to remove her hat, gave her a kiss, made her sit down on the daybed, and showed her his small library, where she would find something to distract her while he was gone. the book of laughter and forgetting, m. kundera
Chapter 8: On Moving
“There is still one of which you never speak.” Marco Polo bowed his head. “Venice,” the Khan said. invisible cities, i. calvino
Marco smiled. “What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?” The emperor did not turn a hair. “And yet I have never heard you mention that name.” invisible cities, i. calvino
And Polo said: “Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice.” “When I ask you about other cities, I want to hear about them. And about Venice, when I ask you about Venice.” invisible cities, i. calvino
“To distinguish the other cities’ qualities, I must speak of a first city that remains implicit. For me it is Venice.” invisible cities, i. calvino
Irene Urmeneta is a designer living and working in New York. She is not yet licensed.