Love And Garbage
Registered by hendertuckian of Henderson, Nevada USA on 4/2/2007
This book is in a Controlled Release!
This book is in a Controlled Release!
3 journalers for this copy...
Selected for Olympic Challenge - Czech Republic
This book is definatly not my style but once I read into the 3rd section (too long to be called chapters) it became more interesting.
This book is definatly not my style but once I read into the 3rd section (too long to be called chapters) it became more interesting.
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
on its way to a new home.
on its way to a new home.
Thankyou very much for sending this book to me, I am looking forward to reading it.
You would not have to know that author is Jewish to recognize all the elements of his Jewish soul. He writes a story about adultery, a subject that I just detest, and turns it into a work of art about the soul and the yearning for G-d. This book is a master work.
"I had known ever since my wartime childhood that we are living on the edge of an abyss, above a black pit into which we must fall one day, but I felt that its jaws were now receding from me and that I was tied to life by a countless number of threads which together formed a firm net on which I was, for the time being, swinging at life's vertiginous height.
But the threads were quietly breaking, some gone rotten with age, some snapped by my own clumsiness, and others severed by other people. Or might I say: by the time we live in."
"Perhaps just that is the essence or the meaning of writing: we speak about our most personal concerns in a language which turns equally to human beings as to someone who is above us and who, in some echo or reflection, also resides within us. If a person does not glimpse or hear within himself something that surpasses him, that has cosmic depth, then language will not make him respond anyway. Literature is not intended for him."
"But I was pondering then about what happened to the human soul at the epicentre of an atomic explosion. Even if the soul was non-corporeal, even if it was only space enveloped by matter, even if it was of an entirely different nature, could it really survive that heat? Who could visualize a soul at the centre of the sun or some other star?
You're always racking your brain with pointless questions. What's the use of it?
Tell me at least what you think happens to a soul which cannot stand the pressure of the world around it and bursts or shatters into fragments which no one can ever bring together again?
Don't worry, it doesn't perish. Maybe a new soul springs from each fragment, like a tree from a seed. Or else all the fragments combine together again in another time, in another life, coming together like droplets in a fog. Better ask what you should do so the souls around you don't perish.
I'm asking that one too."
"I had always hoped that life's flame would burn pure within me. To live and at the same time have darkness within one, to live and exhale death, what point would there be in that?
But what kind of flame had there been burning within me these past few years? I couldn't answer my question, I'd lost my judgment. Everything that had surrounded me in the past, everything that had been significant and had filled me with joy or sorrow, had gone flat and like a strip of faded material now drifted at my feet."
"Heroes impose themselves. They'd placed a bomb aboard the plane and they were not only resolute and ruthless, but were no doubt also fighting for someone's freedom.
A lot of people talk about freedom, those who deny it to others most loudly. The concentration camps of my childhood even had a slogan about freedom inscribed over their gates.
But I am more and more convinced that an action can be free only if it is inspired by humanity, only if it is aware of a higher judge. It cannot be linked to acts of arbitrariness, hatred or violence, nor indeed to personal selfish interest."
"I stiffen as I show her my identity card, which proves me guilty, but the receptionist cares little about other people's infidelities, she has her own worries and my lover inspires confidence in her. Indeed the two women chat together as if they'd know one another for years, while the terrier on the floor regards me without interest as I wait in this strange hall like a faithful unfaithful dog."
"The vision of paradise persists within us, and with it also the vision of togetherness. For in paradise there is no such thing as isolation, man lives there in the company of angels and in the proximity of God. In paradise we shall be ranged in a higher and eternal order, which eludes us on earth, were we are cast, where we are outcast.
We long for paradise and we long to escape from loneliness.
We attempt to do so by seeking a great love, or else we blunder from one person to another in the hope that someone will at last take notice of us, will long to meet us or at least to talk to us."
"Perhaps there is something within us still, above everything else, some ancient law, a law beyond logic, that forbids us to abandon those near and dear to us. We are dimly aware of it but we pretend not to know about it, that it has long ceased to be valid and that we may therefore disregard it. And we dismiss the voice within us as foolish and reactionary, preventing us from tasting something of the bliss of paradise while we are still in this life.We break the ancient laws which echo within us and we believe that we may do with impunity. Surely man, on his road to greater freedom, on his road to his dreamed-of-heaven, should be permitted everything. We are all, each for himself and all together, pursuing the notion of earthly bliss and, in doing so, are piling guilt upon ourselves, even though we refuse to admit it. But what bliss can a man attain with a soul weighed down by guilt? His only way out is to kill the soul within him, and join the crowd of those who roam the world in search of something to fill the void which yawns within them after their soul is dead."
"Life-and hence also death- went on."
"I had known ever since my wartime childhood that we are living on the edge of an abyss, above a black pit into which we must fall one day, but I felt that its jaws were now receding from me and that I was tied to life by a countless number of threads which together formed a firm net on which I was, for the time being, swinging at life's vertiginous height.
But the threads were quietly breaking, some gone rotten with age, some snapped by my own clumsiness, and others severed by other people. Or might I say: by the time we live in."
"Perhaps just that is the essence or the meaning of writing: we speak about our most personal concerns in a language which turns equally to human beings as to someone who is above us and who, in some echo or reflection, also resides within us. If a person does not glimpse or hear within himself something that surpasses him, that has cosmic depth, then language will not make him respond anyway. Literature is not intended for him."
"But I was pondering then about what happened to the human soul at the epicentre of an atomic explosion. Even if the soul was non-corporeal, even if it was only space enveloped by matter, even if it was of an entirely different nature, could it really survive that heat? Who could visualize a soul at the centre of the sun or some other star?
You're always racking your brain with pointless questions. What's the use of it?
Tell me at least what you think happens to a soul which cannot stand the pressure of the world around it and bursts or shatters into fragments which no one can ever bring together again?
Don't worry, it doesn't perish. Maybe a new soul springs from each fragment, like a tree from a seed. Or else all the fragments combine together again in another time, in another life, coming together like droplets in a fog. Better ask what you should do so the souls around you don't perish.
I'm asking that one too."
"I had always hoped that life's flame would burn pure within me. To live and at the same time have darkness within one, to live and exhale death, what point would there be in that?
But what kind of flame had there been burning within me these past few years? I couldn't answer my question, I'd lost my judgment. Everything that had surrounded me in the past, everything that had been significant and had filled me with joy or sorrow, had gone flat and like a strip of faded material now drifted at my feet."
"Heroes impose themselves. They'd placed a bomb aboard the plane and they were not only resolute and ruthless, but were no doubt also fighting for someone's freedom.
A lot of people talk about freedom, those who deny it to others most loudly. The concentration camps of my childhood even had a slogan about freedom inscribed over their gates.
But I am more and more convinced that an action can be free only if it is inspired by humanity, only if it is aware of a higher judge. It cannot be linked to acts of arbitrariness, hatred or violence, nor indeed to personal selfish interest."
"I stiffen as I show her my identity card, which proves me guilty, but the receptionist cares little about other people's infidelities, she has her own worries and my lover inspires confidence in her. Indeed the two women chat together as if they'd know one another for years, while the terrier on the floor regards me without interest as I wait in this strange hall like a faithful unfaithful dog."
"The vision of paradise persists within us, and with it also the vision of togetherness. For in paradise there is no such thing as isolation, man lives there in the company of angels and in the proximity of God. In paradise we shall be ranged in a higher and eternal order, which eludes us on earth, were we are cast, where we are outcast.
We long for paradise and we long to escape from loneliness.
We attempt to do so by seeking a great love, or else we blunder from one person to another in the hope that someone will at last take notice of us, will long to meet us or at least to talk to us."
"Perhaps there is something within us still, above everything else, some ancient law, a law beyond logic, that forbids us to abandon those near and dear to us. We are dimly aware of it but we pretend not to know about it, that it has long ceased to be valid and that we may therefore disregard it. And we dismiss the voice within us as foolish and reactionary, preventing us from tasting something of the bliss of paradise while we are still in this life.We break the ancient laws which echo within us and we believe that we may do with impunity. Surely man, on his road to greater freedom, on his road to his dreamed-of-heaven, should be permitted everything. We are all, each for himself and all together, pursuing the notion of earthly bliss and, in doing so, are piling guilt upon ourselves, even though we refuse to admit it. But what bliss can a man attain with a soul weighed down by guilt? His only way out is to kill the soul within him, and join the crowd of those who roam the world in search of something to fill the void which yawns within them after their soul is dead."
"Life-and hence also death- went on."
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
Re-released in Kalman's memory bookbox - 17th birthday, remembering you!
Re-released in Kalman's memory bookbox - 17th birthday, remembering you!
Chosen out of Kalman's 17th Birthday memorial Box. Thank you for including it! Will read and release someday.
Enjoyed this book but it is time for it to move on!
Passing it on to my daughter cannabeanz.
To the finder of this book:
This book is gift, no strings attached, from me to you. You may keep it forever, pass it along to a friend, or release it into the wild to be found by someone else. If you are new to BookCrossing, welcome! Enjoy the site, the book, and the BookCrossing community. I hope you'll join us...it's free! If you do, please consider using me, polliwog, as your referring member. You can even remain anonymous if you wish! I hope you'll make a brief journal entry so all the previous and future readers can track this book's journey.
Thanks, and Happy BookCrossing! :)
Passing it on to my daughter cannabeanz.
To the finder of this book:
This book is gift, no strings attached, from me to you. You may keep it forever, pass it along to a friend, or release it into the wild to be found by someone else. If you are new to BookCrossing, welcome! Enjoy the site, the book, and the BookCrossing community. I hope you'll join us...it's free! If you do, please consider using me, polliwog, as your referring member. You can even remain anonymous if you wish! I hope you'll make a brief journal entry so all the previous and future readers can track this book's journey.
Thanks, and Happy BookCrossing! :)
