Travels in the Scriptorium

"My head would fill with images of my wife and daughter, and again and again I would see their mud-splattered bodies being lowered into the ground, again and again I would see their naked limbs entwined among the limbs of other corpses in the hole, and suddenly the darkness of the house would become too much to bear. I would venture out into public places, hoping to break the spell of those images in the noise and tumult of crowds. I frequented taverns and alehouses, and it was in one of those establishments that I did the most damage to myself and my reputation."

pp.44-45



"The Confederation... The Con-fed-e-ra-tion... It's all very simple, isn't it? Just another name for America. Not the United States as we know it, but a country that has evolved in another way, that has another history. But all the trees, all the mountains, all the prairies of that country stand exactly where they do in ours. The rivers and oceans are identical. Men walk on two legs, see with two eyes, and touch with two hands. They think double thoughts, and speak out of both sides of their mouths at once."

p.81


"It will never end. For Mr. Blank is one of us now, and struggle though he might to understand his predicament, he will always be lost. I believe I speak for all his charges when I say he is getting what he deserves - no more, no less. Not as a form of punishment, but as an act of supreme justice and compassion. Without him, we are nothing, but the paradox is that we, the figments of another mind, will outlive the mind that made us, for once we are thrown into the world, we continue to exist forever, and our stories go on being told, even after we are dead."

p.129

Zoli

Image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/howzey/3296670987/


"I had for some years considered myself to be Czechoslovakian but, in retrospect, I was too English for that, too Irish to be fully English, and too Slovakian to be in any way Irish. Translation had always got in the way of definition."
p.97

An interesting take on the stranger?


" 'I want to go home,' she said. She put her head against the wall and I felt privy to her sadness. It was, of course, the oldest idea: home. To her it meant silence. I tried to take her arm but she turned away."
p.103



"Always the feeling that they were looking right through me, past me, anxious to be with anybody but themselves. The way they smoked, as if it would never belong to them."
p.171



"It had always been, when Swann was around, the time of evening that promised most brightness. Into the dark lobby. Up the stairs. Past the waterstains on the walls. The air hard with cigarette smoke. Swann would flick a lighter for them to find their way. Through the swinging door. A few heads turned. Swann liked to think that they were already stepping into saloon territory. They stood for the national anthem, then sat against the hard-backed seats and waited for their eyes to adjust. "
p.188

A beautiful description of the threshold of the cinema, of the journey from real to fictive space.



"It startles her, the ease with which she has crossed from one place into another, the landscape wholly alien and yet so much the same."
p.214



"In the hotel glass, a reflection startles her, her grey hair, the bright dress, the shrunken bend of her back. To have come all this way and see herself like this. She pushes back through the revolving doors."
p.343

Confronting the physical manifestation of oneself to enter (see 'shopfront' post)

IDEAS

"Once you label me you negate me." Kierkegaard

http://www.simonhoegsberg.com/we_are_all_gonna_die/slider.html

An insight into the life of a cross section of the city, could we identify traits of our characters? Is the photographer the narrator?

Falling Down The Rabbit Hole...?

The British Film Institute has released this restoration of the very first Alice in Wonderland film from 1903. Shot on 35mm, it was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow.