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variety that merits appreciation

2024-08-28

1 minute read

Quick entry, I read a couple of good short stories in the latest Paris Review and I want to mention them here. They both have a sad tone throughout. I don't know where I've written about it before but I really like the way good literature lends dignity and depth to the sadness of the world. I struggle with the kind of cultural fear of sadness I feel in my day-to-day conversations. I don't want to say sadness is good, but it's not going anywhere, and it has variety that merits appreciation.

We talked a lot and it wasn’t at all like the conversations 
I had with my father, because behind our words there was always a text that neither of us could read, which we would pore over and study without ever managing to decipher it. - from That Summer by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson

The whole town knows those trains and how to recognize them, and sometimes, waking with a start in the middle of the night, they’re gripped by a fear that the train that’s suddenly arrived is neither the Northern nor the Express nor the four-o’clock Combo, that it might be a New Train, coming in from the opposite direction, that stops in town, releases a long mournful whistle, and pulls slowly away, bound for the capital, and that it takes all of them away, again, forever. - from Passengers on the Night Train by Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill, translated by Will Vanderhyden

Probably not as good out of context, but worth saving none the less.

As I was searching the archive to see if I'd mentioned sadness in literature before I found this self coined quote, written after recieving some terrible news

The brutality of this world is a heavy coat.

and I burst into tears.

unrelated

I did a good jam with my brother the other day.

Theme: Wayfinding
Medium: Curation

6 items, text and image. At least one self generated.

⚕︎. Wayfinding

listening to

Don't by Honeyglaze

questions

Courtesy of James Clear