The Road / Cormac McCarthy

Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, don't you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
"To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong." Joseph Chilton Pearce

"If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed,
except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I."
Michel de Montaigne, "Of Friendship"

Monday, January 3, 2011

Chapter 13: The Horns of the Altar

"We are all of us clocks," says Eddington, "whose faces tell the passing years." The young man proudly names his scars for his lover; the old man alone before a mirror erases his scars with his eyes and sees himself whole.
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Don't you just love Dillard? I had to read the last sentence twice to fully appreciate it. The imagery is solidary, lovely, and--my favorite word I learned from Dillard--eidetic. Because I see an old man. Because I see the young man through the old man's eyes. And I see myself, countless times before a mirror, erasing away my scars and tears weather-beaten by the passing years. Then you're perfect, aren't you, to yourself and no one else, in that unselfish self-consciousness. 
Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment