something from a world we aren't meant to see

I might have been a body buried in a brick wall, eavesdropping on the simple business of the living. It came to me that death itself could be a more distant form of participation in the continuing history of the world. Death could be like this, a simultaneous presence and absence while your friends continued to chat among the lamps and furniture about someone who was no longer you.

-Bobby, A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham



This book is dragging a little now towards the end, but I'll suddenly come across passages such as this one and be a little stunned at this guy's grace with words. He can be very insightful. Next in my plans is another of his, The Hours, which is actually his more popular novel, so I'm excited. I'm not sure why I've taken such a craving for reading lately. Perhaps, I guess, I am driving myself crazy with all the reading I have to do for my classes this semester. It is getting a little unrealisitc. Literally, I have 100 pages a week at the very least. The worst somehow are my two favorite classes--biology and physiology. The information is interesting, but definitely not possible for me to remember without taking notes as I read. Meaning it takes about 4x as long as it reasonably should. At least for my British Literature class I can read the passages one or two times and I am prepared for lecture.

So I like to take breaks from reading and note-taking, with reading novels.



Back to my original analysis now.. Each of the characters have some emotional problems--mostly centering around existentialism (yay!). Bobby's brother (and best friend) died in front of him when he was young, and now as a grown man, he has a sense that he is living for his brother in a way, which is making it hard for him to understand himself completely. I like this. I don't think I understand myself completely most of the time.

Jonathan is gay and had a bit of a strange relationship with his mother growing up, or maybe she was just a little strange. But now he is a little lost as far as love and relationships go. He has always wanted to fall in love, but is losing faith in his idealistic view of it.

Love had seemed so final and so dull--love was what ruined our parents. Love had delivered them to a life of mortgage payments and household repairs; to unglamorous jobs and the fluorescent aisles of a supermarket at two in the afternoon. We'd hoped for love of a different kind, love that knew and forgave our human frailty but did not miniaturize our grander idea of ourselves.
-Jonathan, A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham


I identify most with Jonathan.



Claire is the other main character, but I really dislike her. I'm not sure if the author wants us to not like her, or if it is one of those weird Rachael-is-crazy sort of things. It's not blatant that we shouldn't like her, so I'm thinking is the later. Ah well.