Alice Munro
It's always like that. Love is so dangerous that we hurt those we
love and to prevent being hurt we run away. We may clearly see
the choices and the consequences; the sad thing is that there's no
other way. In a way I feel the same as the protagonist, distressed
and defeated; I ran away, not intending to go back to face the
music.
Why do we have always be "use" to anyone to be loved?
"My mother, I felt, was not to be trusted. She was kinder than my
father and more easily fooled, but you could not depend on her, and
the real reasons for the things she said and did were not to be
known.....It did not occur to me that she could be lonely, or
jealous. No grown-up could be; they were too fortunate."
"I didn't have any great feeling of horror and opposition, such
as a city child might have had; I was too used to seeing the
death of animals as a necessity by which we lived. Yet I felt
a little ashamed, and there was a new wariness, a sense of
holding-off, in my attitude to my father and his work."
"I was on Flora's side, and that made me no use to anybody,
not even to her. Just the same, I did not regret it; when she
came ruuning at me and I held the gate open, that was the only
thing I could do."
Flannery O'Connor
果然不管子女怎麼樣都無法滿足父母的期望嗎？還是這只是人類單純的
貪心和救世主情節作祟？總之Sheppard（這個名字真是有深意）讓我
想起了龍槍傳奇裡的Chrisania（唔、是叫這個名字嗎？），失敗是可
以預期的，The devil has most people in his power.
赫然發現這篇小說的名字取得很有趣。Sheppard, Norton, Furus Johnson
不信神卻又想領導人的Sheperd，信神卻又想當太空人的科學家，
還有奇詭卻又是最虔誠的Everyman.
"God, kid," Johnson said in a cracked voice, "how do you stand
it?" His face was stiff with outrage. "He thinks he's Jesus Christ."
Corilla, My Love/ Toni Cade Bambara
無法理解成人遊戲規則的小孩子。
曾經我也一度迷惘過，直到現在我還不敢說
我完全弄清楚了。
"And Baby Jason crying too. Cause he is my blood brother and
understands that we must stick together or be forever lost,
what with grown-ups playin chang-up and turmin you round
every which way so bad. And don't even say they sorry."
Guy Vanderhaeghe
原來我們的課本都收錄了這麼有趣的小說啊。
裡頭祖母的氣魄讓我想起了天空之城的海賊奶奶，太了不起了。
至於Thompson先生，對不起，不識相的就死得好。
我是佩服主角的，雖然是個小孩，但從watcher變成 player的時喉，
卻毫不遜色，這點我就輸多了，馬齒徒長。
令我更欣賞的是，這故事無關道德與正義，既然大家都為了自己，
就不能要求別人放棄自己的安全來誠實吐露，這才是這個社會最
終的法則，人類求生存的生物性。 He did know the rules.
現在只能希望我不要變成越來越無聊的老人。
"Well," said my grandmother at last, "round one. Now for round two--
get the hell out of my house."
Adults could be immensely interesting and entertaining if you knew
what to watch for.
'He must be an awful smart fellow to be studying to be a professor at
a university," I commented. It was the last dig I could chance.
"one thing I know for sure," snapped my grandmother. "He isn't smart
enough to lift the toilt seat when he pees. There's evidence enough
for that."
"YOu know, being intelligent means responsibilities. It means doing
something worth while with your life."
(Oh, why people can never give up mixing proud ingorance with ideals?)
He had no business begging me. I had watched their game from
the sidelines long enough to know the rules. At one time he had
imagined himself a winner. And now he was asking me to save him,
to take a rist, when I was more completely in her clutches than he
would ever be. He forgot I was a child. I depended on her."
Joseph Conrad
我必須承認我在第一段看到睡著了:P
（當年我在看黑暗之心時也是昏昏欲睡啊。）
可是最後他為了那位sharer 所做的舉動真是有某種英雄氣概，或許這
才是他收留那個人的動機，為了成就雙方的壯烈抉擇，但是他說的沒
錯，He is too proud to explain.
Love Medicine/Louise Erdrich
很棒的故事，充滿了想像力以及淡淡的悲傷。
每當看見印地諳人的題材，我就不免想起少年小樹之歌，而巧合的是，
又是主角與祖父母的故事（雖然沒有血緣關係）。而且，我覺得很好看。
生死豁達。
"And that's when I saw how much grief and love she felt for him.
And it gave me a real shock to the system. You see I thought
love got easier over the years so it didn't hurt so bad when it
hurt, or feel so good when it felt good. I thought it smoothed out
and old people hardly noticed it. I thought it curled up and died, I
guess. Now I saw it rear up like a whip and lash."
"Oh yes, I'm bitter as an old cutworm just thinking of how they
done to us and doing still." (I must confess this sentence is my
favorite.)
"It struck me how strong and reliable grief was, and death. Until
the end of time, death would be our rock."
"If I ever saw King again, I'd shake his hands. Forgiving some-
body else made the whole thing easier to ber."
I wonder whether I am forgiven or not now. Just wondering, cuz
that matters not, either. Nothing matters.
Anton Chekhov
"The Stories told of the immorality in such places as Yalta are to a
great extent untrue; he despised them, and knew that such stories
were for the most part made up by persons who wold themselves
have been glad to sin if they had been able...."
"Believe me, believe me, I beseech you..." she said. "I love apure,
honest life, and sin is loathsome to me...."
"He had to lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to
know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like
the lives of his friends and acquintances; and another life running
its course in secret."
"Why did she love him so much? He always seemed to women
different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself,
but the man created by their imagination, whom they had been
eagerly seeking in their lives; and afterwards, when they noticed
thier mistake, they loved him all the same. And not one of them
had been happy with him."
所以真實是什麼呢？
We can live under illusion; I guess that would be easier.
Richard Dokey
整體感覺非常悲傷的故事。It didn't talk a lot about loneliness, but
gives the feeling.
"His mother had told him the stars were a kind of purgatory in which
souls burned in cold, silent repentance. He had wondered after her
death if the earth too were not a star burning in loneliness, and he
could never look at them later without thinking this and believing
that the earth must be the brightest of all stars.
我想Juan 是有 trauma的，對於世界，那些可以用努力解決的問題永遠都不是問題，
真正的問題在於某些問題無法解決，even love won't work.
Great Expectation裡出現的歌，託P之福，居然聽道了，只是當時看著男主角拼命作畫的時候，怎麼想都想不到原來歌詞這麼悽慘。
到底應該怎麼樣才算是好朋友呢？我一直不明白，
想必也一直都不合格。如果哪天我說話不再尖銳
刺耳了，或許也會進步一點吧。
Maybe I am also a fake, a worthless one,
with no delicacy and value, being cast away
after satisfying the illusion and imagination.
And that matters not anymore.
To hell with you, dear.
I could curse, I would revenge, like a vampire
mourning his loss of humanity. But I am not
crazy cuz I am still a weak human being, lost
in self-pity and that's useless. I vowed to follow
the decree of that poet that sometimes total
forgetfulness is higher revenge.
To hell with you, memories.
"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care"
正常是什麼？只要閉緊嘴巴就可以。
每個人都有瘋狂的一面，只是隱藏起來了。
沒有人在乎。
只要謹言，再不慎的行為都不會被看見。
翻譯事業再開，果然老闆要我借英文書的時候我就得小心點了。
其實也沒什麼不好，比起上一次50年前的英文來說已經好很多了，跟著Pete Teo的歌聲晃來晃去也頗有樂趣，當然還是得忍受外來的噪音，但是可以不用多想其他的事情。
專心工作，專心。
什麼是其他的事情？
是某些無意義的傷感，是某種無意義的希冀，是某種自己早已清楚卻還不肯接受的東西。願意聽妳講話的人很多的，只是他們都在妳開始講話的時候消失，一個個，慢慢地，就是這樣。
不是說不快樂，只是我還沒說出所有，或許也不需要了。
啊啊在瑞士的某O快回來吧。