Editor’s Note: In theory I want to start reviewing the books I read and processing them a bit more (hopefully a meta post on that soon) but till then I’ll be sharing my favorite passages from some of the books I’m reading
I’ll start with my favorite (which chronologically is first anyway). It’s my favorite because I think it’s just a wonderful sentiment (It’s the reverse of schadenfreude!), but it is also the point at which I began to really enjoy the book. [All bolds are my own]
1. “Kiki laughed her big lovely laugh in the small store. People looked up from their specialty good and smiled abstractly, supporting the idea of pleasure even if they weren’t certain of the cause.” -162
2. Basically this entire page, but this passage in particular: “Jerome had wept: the tears you cry for someone whom you never met who made something beautiful that you loved.” -174
3. I think I am enamored with this passage because, on occasion, it describes me all to well: “She smiled in a knowing way about things she did not know” -231
4. Also a sentiment I share: “Radiant with relief, he turned to go. It was the perfect visit: well intended but with no one at home.” -293
5. The entire “tomato” passage on page 312 that reduces every college class to a sentence about a tomato (anyone who has studied liberal arts would do well to read it). A sampling: “It’s our shorthand for when we say, like, Professor Simeon’s class is ‘The tomato’s nature versus the tomato’s nurture’, and Jane Colman’s class is ‘To properly understand the tomato you must first uncover the tomato’s suppressed Herstory’” It continues and is equally entertaining especially the kicker – Howard’s (the main character) class is all about never saying “I like the tomato”
6. And this of course was something I could, on the one hand, relate to, but on the other hand, having been away for a year, not understand at all: “He felt the despondency universities had long inspired in him. He had grown up in them; he had known their book stacks and storage cupboards and quads and spires and science blocks and tennis courts and plaques and statues. He felt sorry for the people who found themselves trapped in such arid surroundings. Even as a small child he was absolutely clear that he never, ever enroll at one himself. In universities, people forget how to live. Even in the middle of a music library, they had forgotten what music was.” -407
