I MIEI LIBRI PREFERITI DI NOVEMBRE

 

Da bambina non mi sentivo una femmina. Mi sentivo asessuata. Poi partorii e mi crebbero le tette e mi sembrò di essere diventata una ragazza. La femminilità è scioccante. Le donne quando le abbraccio mi sembrano sempre più piccole e più morbide di quanto mi aspettassi. Anche se a guardarle non sembrano piccole e morbide. Quando mi crebbero le tette non riuscivo neanche per un attimo a dimenticarmi di averle. Erano una presenza nuova nel mio campo visivo e costringevano il mio corpo a occupare un altro piano nello spazio. Ma la mia mente era una ferita aperta. Era nera.

 

 

 

 

Let me tell you: I’m trying to seize the fourth dimension of the this instant-now so fleeting that it’s already gone because it’s already become a new instant-now that’s also already gone. Every thing has an instant in which it is. I want to grab hold of the is of the thing. These instants passing through the air I breathe: in fireworks they explode silently in space. I want to possess the atoms of time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1957

Being self-conscious. Treating one’s self as an other. Supervising oneself.

I am lazy, vain, indiscreet. I laugh when I’m not amused.

What is the secret of suddenly beginning to write, finding a voice? Try whiskey. Also being warm.

 

 

 

 

 

Books need time to dawn on us, it takes time to understand what makes them, structurally, in thematic resonance, in afterthought, and always in correspondence with the books which came before them, because books are produced by books more than by writers; they’re a result of all the books that went before them. Great books are adaptable; they alter with us as we alter in life, they renew themselves as we change and re-read them at different times in our lives. You can’t step into the same story twice – or maybe it’s that stories, books, art can’t step into the same person twice […].