Sunday, May 29, 2011

On Becoming a Saint

"It comes to his," Tarrou said almost casually; "what interests me is learning how to become a saint."

(Rieux): "But you don't believe in God."

(Tarrou): "Exactly! Can one be a saint without God?--that's the problem, in fact the only problem, I'm up against today."

-Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)


* * *

(Thomas Merton): "I guess what I want is to be a good Catholic."

(Robert Lax): "What do you mean, you want to be a good Catholic? What you should say is that you want to be a saint."

(TM): "How do you expect me to become a saint?"

(RL): "By wanting to. All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Don't you believe that God will make you what He created you to be, if you will consent to let Him do it? All you have to do is desire it."

-Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

Thursday, May 26, 2011

But it doesn't know that.

BEGGAR
See the smoke trembling under the roof as if with fright? Yet when it gets out in the air, it has the whole sky to swirl about in. But it doesn't know that, so it huddles and trembles in the soot under the roof. It's the same with people. They quiver like a leaf in the storm, afraid of what they know, and what they don't know.
Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring" ("Jungfrukällan") (1960) (screenplay by Ulla Isaksson; translation possibly by Lars Malmström & David Kushner)

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

'a little glance of grief and lonely recognition'

Miss Amelia let her hair grow ragged, and it was turning gray. Her face lengthened, and the great muscles of her body shrank until she was thin as old maids are thin when they go crazy. And those gray eyes—slowly day by day they were more crossed, and it was as though they sought each other out to exchange a little glance of grief and lonely recognition. She was not pleasant to listen to; her tongue had sharpened terribly.
Carson McCullers, "The Ballad of the Sad Café" (1943)

Sunday, May 15, 2011

'what writers of my generation ... have given the world even one drop of alcohol?'

You are a hard drinker and I treated you to sweet lemonade; after downing it wryly, you remark with entire justice that it hasn't an alcoholic kick. That is just what our works haven't got—the kick that would make us drunk and hold us in their grasp, and this you set forth clearly. And why not? ... Let's talk of general causes, if it won't bore you, and let's embrace the whole age. Tell me in all conscience, what writers of my own generation, i.e., people from thirty to forty-five, have given the world even one drop of alcohol? Aren't ... all today's playwrights lemonade? … The causes for it are not to be found in our stupidity or lack of gifts and not in our insolence ... but in a disease which in an artist is worse than syphilis or sexual impotence. Our illness is a lack of “something,” that is the rights of the case, and it means that when you lift the hem of our Muse's gown you will behold an empty void. Bear in mind that writers who are considered immoral or just plain good and who intoxicate us have one very important trait in common: they are going somewhere and call you with them; you sense, not with your mind but with all your being, that they have an aim, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, who had a reason for appearing and alarming the imagination.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, letter to Alexie Suvorin dated November 25, 1892, The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov (trans. Lederer 1984)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

'the same inner darkness'

... I recalled ... the long, long series of obscure, protracted sufferings I had been observing in this town uninterruptedly since childhood; and it was incomprehensible to me what these sixty thousand inhabitants lived by, why they read the Gospel, why they prayed, why they read books and magazines. What benefit did they derive from all that had been written and said so far, if there was in them the same inner darkness and the same aversion to freedom as a hundred or three hundred years ago? A building contractor builds houses in town all his life, and yet till his dying day he says "galdary" instead of "gallery," and so, too, these sixty thousand inhabitants for generations have been reading and hearing about truth, mercy, and freedom, and yet till their dying day they lie from morning to evening, torment each other, and as for freedom, they fear it and hate it like an enemy.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, "My Life" (1896) (trans. Pevear & Volokhonsky 2004)

Friday, May 6, 2011

Books are good company...

Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together---just the two of you. A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people---people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
E.B. White, in a letter dated April 14, 1971, to the children of Troy, Michigan, upon the opening of a public library there (posted at Letters of Note)

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

'the next level of abstraction'

"And Ted's right on top of that, he thinks our culture attaches too much importance to feelings, he says it's out of control, it's not computers that are making everything virtual, it's mental health. Everyone's trying to correct their thoughts and improve their feelings and work on their relationships and parenting skills instead of just getting married and raising children like they used to, is what Ted says. We've bumped up to the next level of abstraction because we have too much time and money, is what he says, and he refuses to be a part of it. He wants to eat 'real' food and go to 'real' places and talk about 'real' things like business and science. So he and I don't really agree at all anymore on what's important in life."
Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001)