Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Three True Things I Have Recently Read

1. "Have you noticed how people talk about 'people', people do this, people do that,'without seeming to realise that they are a person too?" Emily Perkins, Novel About My Wife, p 208

2. "Her disapproval about such things, about the lifeline I found for myself, hurts me. But it's her ignorance that's making me angry. ... 'How dare you judge me? You're just like everyone else, disapproving of the fact that I'm obsessive then disapproving of the way I tried to pull myself out of it. Everyone's a fucking expert. ... Sometimes there's nothing else you can do. Those drugs don't make you well--Jesus, they don't even make you feel better--but they turn off the static. The noise,the interference, the shit in your head that keeps you from understanding you are destroying yourself.'
'You're smart,' Ruby says, looking at me anxiously because she knows I'm upset but she wants to stand her ground. 'You would have figured things out.'
'If we are going to be friends I need you tounderstand this. I'm smart but I could not figure things out. Could not." Sophie Cunningham, Geography, p200

3. "'You have no idea how tedious and unremarkable madness can be.'" Sophie Cunningham, Geography, p201

8 comments:

genevieve said...

Ooh. I feel a meme coming on.

Kirsty said...

Okay, you're tagged, Genevieve. Just one rule, the true things have to be from works of fiction.

Mark Lawrence said...

darn, gen beat me to it! I was just going to comment that this is brilliant inspiration for my faltering blog. Perhaps I won't wait to be 'tagged'?

BTW, thanks for that brilliant window into Sophie's first novel. Makes me want to read it.

Also, I'm inspired and envious at how you've been able to get back into blogging so much and so well. Got. to. start. blogging. again.

Ampersand Duck said...

Bloomsbury

genevieve said...

AAAAH fiction. Just wrote it with two quotes from NF. Bugger, time to rewrite then.

Ann ODyne said...

Hi Kirsty- I followed the trail here from Geneveive's.

re
"just one rule, the true things have to be from works of fiction."

I always think, when reading/hearing a line I recognise as profound, that it is actually NOT fiction, and that the writer MUST have experienced it sometime, and entered it into The Notes Book for later use.

"oh that's too good -
it must have actually happened, as
You Couldn't Make It Up"

Sophie's Geography deserves an award.

Kirsty said...

I guess I'm having some trouble with the comments feeding through to my email because I missed all your comments until I came here to post again.

I know I'd always wanted to read Geography, so I was glad to stumble across it in the UQ library. It builds wonderfully and I have to admit when I read the two quotes I've posted here, I had to stop, have a bit of cry, and sleep for 9 hours. So I guess that is the 'truth' I found in the fiction, so to speak.

I suppose one of the things I've noticed on the occasions that I've taught literature to uni students is that they devalue fiction as a source of insight into the human condition because if it didn't really happen then it's not 'true'. That's why I specified fictional works because yes, I think the way it can resonate with experience but also offer insight can be very powerful.

And &Duck, you don't know how much 'Bloomsbury' has helped me. I had the best meeting with my supervisor yesterday, where he commented on how much work I had done in 2 weeks, and it's all down to that small word, so thank you!

Ann ODyne said...

re:
" people talk about 'people', people do this, people do that,'without seeming to realise that they are a person too"

ABCTV 'Australian Story' this week showed a doctor, head of a hospital, asking an Intensive-Care patient
"Have THEY given you a cup of tea yet?"
and it revealed his dissociation from the organisation that he Heads.
That tape you hear when dialling Centrelink about your Austudy -
"Your call may be monitored"
means Clink supervisors carpet any employees who inadvertently refer to The Department as 'They'.
as in
"they gave you the supplement on"
must be
"WE gave you".
However, I don't think people notice it.

(joke)