gems from j m coetzee’s “youth”
“Never in his life has he had to call on
his utmost powers. Less than his best has always been good enough. Now he is in
a fight for his life. Unless he throws himself wholly into his work, he is
going to sink.
Yet whole days pass in a fog of grey
exhaustion. He curses himself for letting himself be sucked back into an affair
that costs him so much. If this is what having a mistress entails, how do
Picasso and the others get by? He simply has not the energy to run from lecture
to lecture, job to job, then when the day is done to pay attention to a woman
who veers between euphoria and spells of the blackest gloom in which she
thrashes around brooding on a lifetime’s grudges.”
“Normal people find it hard to be bad.
Normal people, when they feel badness flare up within them, drink, swear, commit violence. Badness is to them like a fever: they want
it out of their system, they want to go back to being
normal. But artists have to live with their fever, whatever its nature, good or
bad. The fever is what makes them artists; the fever must be kept alive. That
is why artists can never be wholly present to the world: one eye has always to
be turned inward. As for women who flock after artists, they cannot wholly be
trusted. For just as the spirit of the artist is both flame and fever, so the
woman who yearns to be licked by tongues of flame will at the same time do her
best to quench the fever and bring down the artist to common ground. Therefore
women have to be resisted even when they are loved. They cannot be allowed
close enough to the flame to nip it out.”
gems from j m coetzee’s “age of iron”
“Letting go of myself, letting go of you,
letting go of a house still alive with memories: a hard task, but I am
learning. The music too. But the music I will take
with me, that at least, for it is wound into my soul. The ariosos
from the Matthew Passion, wound in and knotted a
thousand times, so that no one, nothing can undo them.”
“You think I am upset but will get over
it. Cheap tears, you think, tears of sentiment, here today, gone tomorrow. Well,
it is true, I have been upset in the past, I have imagined there could be no
worse, and then the worse has arrived, as it does without fail, and I have got
over it, or seemed to. But that is the trouble! In order not to be paralyzed
with shame I have had to live a life of getting over the worse. What I cannot
get over any more is that getting over.
If I get over it this time I will never have another change not to get over it. For the sake of my
own resurrection I cannot get over it this time.”
and rubbish from me
should I go on? the yearning’s back but so has the
fear. that usual lifelong, clichéd fear of rejection
and not being able to be friends anymore. is it a mere
crush, or is it real love? I still can’t tell the difference now, and perhaps
that’s a sign not to take things too fast.
then why am I still up, spending sleepless nights? I shouldn’t be putting
myself into such situations anymore; I don’t have time for myself. I don’t have
the confidence in myself. my sister’s relationship has
put things into perspective for myself: I don’t even know what kind of
boyfriend I would become, if I would ever become one.
I realise I haven’t handled rejection for
a long time. I somehow remember I don’t like that feeling. so
perhaps, I don’t want to do anything to get anywhere close to that feeling. but you would say, how would you know if you don’t even try?
I say I don’t dare to. I don’t have the guts. and I know
I’m not good enough. why subject myself to another
confidence-shattering experience? I don’t get enough signs to spur me on. I don’t
want to pretend that friendly gestures are “signs”, and get my kicks out of
that. I don’t want to get upset at innocuous gestures that aren’t meant to hurt
in the first place. I don’t want to get jealous when I’m not supposed to be. I don’t
want to feel so much for someone when that person doesn’t know it. I don’t want
to risk a good friendship, turning it on the radius of a stupid utterance just
because I couldn’t control myself.
then again, what do I really want? even I am unsure myself. maybe
a couple of good friends will help me out there: bacardi, vodka, martini, heineken and gang,
I’ll be meeting you guys soon. meanwhile I’ll resort
to sleep? books? I’ll leave it hanging, and hopefully
that won’t get myself hanged.
dejectium out
03
may 2005
0305
hrs gmt +7