"For the heart, life is simple: it beats for as long as it can. Then it stops. "
That's the first sentence of a book (which happens to be in 6 volumes, chronicling the life and thoughts of its protagonist. It's actually a pseudo-autobiographical novel.
A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1 | Paperback
Karl Ove Knausgaard | Don Bartlett
My Struggle / Min kamp # 1 (series)
Random House UK | Vintage Books
Fiction / Biographical / Family Life / Literary
Published Jul 23, 2013
"Sooner or later, one day, this pounding action will cease of its own accord, and the blood will begin to run towards the body?s lowest point, where it will collect in a small pool, visible from outside as a dark, soft patch on ever whitening skin, as the temperature sinks, the limbs stiffen and the intestines drain. These changes in the first hours occur so slowly and take place with such inexorability that there is something almost ritualistic about them, as though life capitulates according to specific rules, a kind of gentleman?s agreement to which the representatives of death also adhere, inasmuch as they always wait until life has retreated before they launch their invasion of the new landscape. By which point, however, the invasion is irrevocable. The enormous hordes of bacteria that begin to infiltrate the body?s innards cannot be halted. Had they but tried a few hours earlier, they would have met with immediate resistance; however everything around them is quiet now, as they delve deeper and deeper into the moist darkness. "
Oddly, I find myself drawn to these musings. And, just when you think the chapter would dwell on death, we are suddenly taken to the early years of the main character's life. And so the journey begins..
"For the heart, life is simple: it beats for as long as it can. Then it stops. "
That's the first sentence of a book (which happens to be in 6 volumes, chronicling the life and thoughts of its protagonist. It's actually a pseudo-autobiographical novel.
A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1 | Paperback
Karl Ove Knausgaard | Don Bartlett
My Struggle / Min kamp # 1 (series)
Random House UK | Vintage Books
Fiction / Biographical / Family Life / Literary
Published Jul 23, 2013
"Sooner or later, one day, this pounding action will cease of its own accord, and the blood will begin to run towards the body?s lowest point, where it will collect in a small pool, visible from outside as a dark, soft patch on ever whitening skin, as the temperature sinks, the limbs stiffen and the intestines drain. These changes in the first hours occur so slowly and take place with such inexorability that there is something almost ritualistic about them, as though life capitulates according to specific rules, a kind of gentleman?s agreement to which the representatives of death also adhere, inasmuch as they always wait until life has retreated before they launch their invasion of the new landscape. By which point, however, the invasion is irrevocable. The enormous hordes of bacteria that begin to infiltrate the body?s innards cannot be halted. Had they but tried a few hours earlier, they would have met with immediate resistance; however everything around them is quiet now, as they delve deeper and deeper into the moist darkness. "
Oddly, I find myself drawn to these musings. And, just when you think the chapter would dwell on death, we are suddenly taken to the early years of the main character's life. And so the journey begins..
Oddly, I tend to avoid books that start like this. ;-)
How 'bout something like this..
"The Source of all things, the luminescence, has more forms than heaven?s stars, sure. And one good thought is all it takes to make it shine. But a single mistake can burn down a forest in your heart, hiding all the stars, in all the skies. And while a mistake?s still burning, ruined love or lost faith can make you think you?re done, and you can?t go on. But it?s not true. It?s never true. No matter what you do, no matter where you?re lost, the luminescence never leaves you. Any good thing that dies inside can rise again, if you want it hard enough. The heart doesn?t know how to quit, because it doesn?t know how to lie. You lift your eyes from the page, fall into the smile of a perfect stranger, and the searching starts all over again. It?s not what it was. It?s always different. It?s always something else. But the new forest that grows back in a scarred heart is sometimes wilder and stronger than it was before the fire. And if you stay there, in that shine within yourself, that new place for the light, forgiving everything and never giving up, sooner or later you?ll always find yourself right back there where love and beauty made the world: at the beginning. The beginning. The beginning."
That's from the sequel volume to Shantaram.
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