'eternity eludes us. at times like this, all the romantic, political, intellectual, metaphysical and moral beliefs that years of instruction and education have tried to inculcate in us seem to be foundering on the altar of our true nature, and society, a territorial field mined with the powerful charges of hierarchy, is sinking into the nothingness of Meaning. exeunt rich and poor, thinkers, researchers, decision-makers, slaves, the good and the evil, the creative and the conscientious, trade unionists and individualists, progressives and conservatives; all that's left are primitve huminoids whose nudging and posturing, mannerisms and finery, language and codes are all located on the genetic map of an average primate, and all add up to no more than this: hold your rank, or die.
at times like this you desperately need Art. you seek to reconnect with your spiritual illusions, and you wish fervently that something might rescue you from yoru biological destiny, so that all poetry and grandeur will not be cast out from the world.
thus, to withdraw as far away as you can from the jousting and combat that are the appanages of our warrior species, you drink a cup of tea, or maybe you watch a film by Ozu, and place upon this sorry theatre the seal of Art and its greatest treasures.'
- p94
'i press the start button, sip my jasmine tea. from time to time i rewind, thanks to this secular rosary known as the remote control. and here is an extraordinary scene.'
- p95
'the death of Pierre Arthens has been wilting my camellias. i open my envelope and read this little note written on a business card whose surface is so glossy that the ink, to the dismay of the defeated blotter, has bled slightly underneath each letter.
Madame Michel,
would you be so kind as, to sign for the packages from the dry cleaner's this afternoon? i'll pick them up from your lodge this evening.
scribbled signature.
i was not prepared for such an underhand attack. i collapse in shock on the nearest chair. i even begin to wonder if i am not going mad. does this have the same effect on you, when this sort of thing happens?
let me explain.
the cat is sleeping.
you've just read a harmless little sentence, and it has not caused you any pain or sudden fits of suffering, has it? fair enough.
now read again:
the cat, is sleeping.
let me repeat it, so that there is no cause for ambiguity:
that cat comma is sleeping.
that cat, is sleeping.
would you be so kind as, to sign for.
on the one hand we have an example of a prodigious use of the comma that takes great liberties with language, as said commas have been inserted quite unnecessarily, but to great effect:
'i have been much blamed, both for war, and for peace..'
and on the other hand, we have this dribbling scribbling of vellum, courtesy of Sabine Pallieres, this comma slicing the sentence in half with all the trenchacy of a knife blade:
would you be so kind as, to sign for the packages from the dry cleaner's?
if Sabine Pallieres had been a Portuguese maid born under a fig tree in Faro, or a concierge who'd just arrived from the high-rise banlieues of Paris, or if she were the mentally challenged member of a tolerant family who had taken her in out of the goodness of their hearts, i might have whole-heartedly forgiven with guilty nonchalance. but Sabine Pallieres is wealthy. Sabine Pallieres is the wife of a bigwig in the arms industry, Sabine Pallieres is the mother of a cretin in a conifer-green duffel coat who, once he has his requisite diplomas and has obtained his Political Science degree, will in all likelihood go on to disseminate the mediocrity of his paltry ideas in a right-wing ministerial cabinet, and Sabine Pallieres is, moreover, the daughter of a nasty woman in a fur coast who sits on the selection committee of a very prestigious publishing house and who is also so overloaded with jewels that there are days when i fear she will collapse from the sheer weight of them.
for all these reasons, Sabine Pallieres has no excuse. the gifts of fate come with a price. for those who have been favoured by life's indulgence, rigorous respect in manners of beauty is a non-negotiable requirement.
at this critical moment in my indignant ruminations someone rings at my lodge.'
- p106
'Levin delights in the forgetfulness that movement brings, where the pleasure of doing is marvellously foreign to the striving of the will.
freed from the demands of the decision and intention, adrift on some inner sea, we observe our various movements as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence.'
- p119
'two reasons, to be exact, both related to Ozu's films. the first had to do with the sliding doors themselves. from the very first film i saw, Flavour of Green Tea over Rice, i was fascinated by the way the Japanese use space in their lives, and by these doors that slide and move quietly along invisible rails, refusing to offend space. for when we push open a door, we transform a place in a very insiduous way. we offend its full extension, and introduce a disruptive and poorly proportioned obstacle. if you think about it carefully, there is nothing uglier than an open door. an open door introduces a break in the room, a sort of provincial interference, destroying the unity of space. in the adjoining room it creates a depression, an absolutely pointless gaping hole adrift in a section of awll that would have preferred to remain whole. in either case a door distrupts continuity, without offering anything in exchange other than freedom of movement, which could easily be ensured by another means.'
- p148
'they could tell a little cloud from Siberia was hovering over the head of our fat French teacher. in reality, i've never read a thing by Jakobson, obviously not. though i may be superbright, i'd rather read manga or literature. but Maman has a friend (who's a university lecturer) who was talking about Jakobson yesterday (while they were indulging in a hunk of Camembert and a bottle of red wine at five in the afternoon). so, in class this morning i remembered what she had said.
at that moment, when i could sense that the rabble were growling and showing their teeth, i felt pity. i felt sorry for Madame Fine. and i don't like a lynching. it never shows anyone in a good light.
and on the way home i thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.'
- p156
'framed in the door, motionless, her hair clinging to her face, her dress soaked through, her shoes caked with mud, staring lifelessly, stood Lisette. how did my mother know? how did this woman who, while never mistreating us, never showed us that she loved us, either by deed or word - how did this coarse woman who brought her children into the world in the same way she turned over the soil or fed the hens, this illiterate woman, so exhausted by life that she has never even called us by the names she had given us - to the point where I at times wondered if she even remembered them - how did she know that her daughter, half-dead, neither moving nor speaking but merely staring at the door without even thinking of knocking, was just waiting in a relentless downpour for someone to open it and bring her into the warm room?
is this a mother's love, this intuition of disaster in one's heart, this spark of empathy that resists even when human beings have been reduced to living like animals?'
- p283, The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
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