What do you do when a piece of fiction fights with itself but makes peace, argues but seems to understand, gets twisted into neat emotion, seems to loves and hate in the same sentence, confuses in a perfectly clear way.
You read it and then read it again trying to understand how the author managed to use such a tangle of words and emotions to describe us and our relationships so confoundingly well.
What an original piece of writing this is.
Read an excerpt from "Here We Aren't, So Quickly." by Jonathan Safran Foer from the June 14 issue of the New Yorker. Then read it again and again...
“I was not good at drawing faces. I was just joking most of the time. I was not decisive in changing rooms or anywhere. I was so late because I was looking for flowers. I was just going through a tunnel whenever my mother called. I was not able to make toast without the radio. I was not able to tell if compliments were back-handed. I was not as tired as I said.
You were not able to ignore furniture imperfections. You were too light to arm the airbag. You were not able to open most jars. You were not sure how you should wear your hair, and so, ten minutes late and halfway down the stairs, you would examine your reflection in a framed picture of dead family. You were not angry, just protecting your dignity.
I was not able to run long distances. You were so kind to my sister when I didn’t know how to be kind. I was just trying to remove a stain; I made a bigger stain. You were just asking a simple question. I was almost always at home, but I was not always at home at home. You were not able to cope with a stack of more than three books on my bedside table, or mixed currencies in the change dish, or plastic. I was not afraid of being alone; I just hated it. You were just admiring the progress of someone else’s garden. I was so tired of food.”
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/06/14/100614fi_fiction_foer
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