Sunday, May 20, 2012

Charlotte Gray at Bending Breath

I found the book "Charlotte Gray" in a shared library in a hostel in Tokyo at 3 am because I couldn't sleep, and I read it all in one sitting and brought it home with me on the plane and haven't read it since, but have thought about it many times. It remains a mystery in my head, a mild obsession, a faint itch that I COULD scratch if I wanted to, but choose not to. I like it almost better as a mystery.

Also, "found in a shared library in a hostel in Tokyo at 3 am because I couldn't sleep" is one of those incredibly pretentious things you only get to say a few times, and I am damned well going to take every opportunity to do so. I'd say I'm sorry about this, but I'm not.

Also: I have no idea how I found this blog, but I read her obsessively. I don't think she even knows I exist. Another mystery that I like to leave as a mystery.

“Memory is the only thing that binds you to earlier selves; for the rest, you become an entirely different being every decade or so, sloughing off the old persona, renewing and moving on. You are not who you were, he told her, nor who you will be.”  
 

-Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray

1 comment:

Aarwenn said...

Also: who else but an American would think to actually brag about their mystical abilities? And the rest of the world says we don't have a cultural identity.