dijous, 11 de setembre del 2008

After Dark, d'Haruki Murakami

“It's amazing how two sister can be so different.”

“We live two different lives,”

**

It's just that people always seem to pick me to tll their secrets to. Guys, girls, people I hardly know, people I've never even met before: they open up to me about their wildest innermost secrets. I wonder why that is? It's not as if I want to hear this stuff.”

**

“You know what I think?” she says, “That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking, 'Oh, this is Kant,', or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition', or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, no-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction-they're all just fuel.”

Korogi nods to herself. Then she goes on:

“You know, I think if I didn't have that fuel, if I didn't have these memory drawes inside me, I would've snapped a long time ago. I would've curled in a ditch somewhere and died. It's because I can pull the memories out of the drawers when I have to -the important ones and the uselles ones-that I can go on living this nightmare of a life. I might think I can't take it any more, that I can't go on any more, but one way or another I get past that.”

Still in her chair, Mari looks up to Korogi.

“So try hard, Mari. Try hard to remember all kinds of stuff about your sister. It'll be important fuel. For you, and probably for your sister, too.”

**

“It's no as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's a shadowy middle ground. Recognising and understanding the shadows is what a helathy intelligence does. And to acquire a healthy intelligence takes a certain amount of time and effort.