《Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life》的原文摘录
There is this emptiness in me. All the things in the world are not enough to drown out the voice of this emptiness that says: you are nothing.
This emptiness does not claim the past because it is always here. It does not have to claim the future as it blocks out the future. It is either a dictator or the closest friend I have ever had. Some days I battle it until we both fall down like injured animals. That is when I wonder: What if I become less than nothing when I get rid of this emptiness? What if this emptiness is what keeps me going? (查看原文)
"The train stopped. When a train stops in the open country between two stations it is impossible not to put one's head out of the window and see what's up," Mansfield wrote at the end of her life. This is the inevitability of life. The train, for reasons unknown to us, always stops between a past and a future, both making this now look as though it is nowhere. But is is this nowhereness that one has to make use of. One looks out the window: the rice paddies and alfalfa fields have long been the past, replaced by vineyards and almond groves. One has made it this far; perhaps this is enough of a reason to journey on. (查看原文)
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 acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people. (Chekhov)
Li, Yiyun. Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life (p. 102). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (查看原文)
To be among people--does that require one to be at home with others, to be at peace with oneself? But an agitated mind does not know any road to peace except the one away from home, which time and again exposes one to that lifelong phobia of attachment, just as to write betrays one's instinct to curl up and hide. Every word one says, every word one writes, every dream and fear and hope and despair one reveals to others and to oneself--they all end up like chicks refusing to be returned to the eggshell. (查看原文)
I have had a troublesome relationship with time. The past I cannot trust because it could be tainted by my memory. The future is hypothetical and should be treated with caution. The present ---what is the present but a constant test: in this muddled in-between one struggles to understand what about oneself has to be changed, what accepted, what preserved. Unless the right actions are taken, one seems never to pass the test to reach the after. (查看原文)
Reticence is a natural state. It is not hiding. People don't show themselves equally and easily to all. Reticence doesn't make one feel lonely as hiding does, yet it distances and invalidates others. (查看原文)
In every thought and feeling about life, time claims a space. When we speak of indecision, we are unwilling to let go of a present. When we speak of moving on ---what a triumphant phrase--we are cutting off the past. And if one seeks kindness from time, it slips away tauntingly, or worse, with indifference. How many among us have said that to others or to ourselves: if only I had a bit more time... (查看原文)
Time will tell, people say, as though time always has the last word. Perhaps I am only hiding from time as I have been hiding from those who want the power to have the last word about others. (查看原文)
Apart from feeling unqualified to be called a dreamer, I may also be worrying about being mistaken for one of those who call themselves dreamers but are merelly ambitious. One meets them often in life, their ambitions smaller than dreams, more commmonplace, in need of broadcasting and dependent on recognition from this particular time. If they cause pain to others, they have no trouble writing off those damages as the cost of their dreams. Timeliness may be one thing that separates ambitions from real dreams. (查看原文)
"The train stopped. When a train stops in the open country between two stations it is impossible not to put one's head out of the window and see what's up," Mansfield wrote at the end of her life. This is the inevitability of life. The train, for reasons unknown to us, alwyas stops between a past and a future, both making this now look as though it is nowhere. But it is this nowhereness that one has to make use of. One looks out the window: the rice paddies and alfalfa fields have long been the past, replaced by vineyards and almond groves. One has made it this far; perhaps this is enough of a reason to journey on. (查看原文)
The paths I walked by myself in Beijing are gone. Even if the city had remained unchanged, I have turned away from the people and the language and the landscape. Homecoming, in my case, would only be meaningful followed by leave-taking. A permanent homecoming would be a resignation. To be among people--does that require one to be at home with others, to be at peace with oneself? But an agitated mind does not know any road to peace except the one away from hoe, which time and again exposes one to that lifelong phobia of attachment, just as to write betrays one's instinct to curl up and hide. Every word one says, every word one writes, every dream and fear and hope and despair one reveals to others and to oneself--they all end up like chicks refusing to be returned to the eggshell. (查看原文)
Isolation, I was reminded again and again, is a danger. But what if one's real context is in books? Some days, going from one book to another, preoccupied with thoughts that were of no importance, I would feel a rare moment of serenity: all that could not be solved in my life was merely a trifle as long as I kept it at a distance. Between that suspended life and myself were these dead people and imagined characters. One could spend one's days among them as a child arranges a circle of stuffed animals when the darkness of night closes in. (查看原文)
Only by fully preparing oneself for people's absence can one be at ease with their presence. A recluse, I have begun to understand, is not a person for whom a connection with another person is unattainable or meaningless, but one who feels she must abstain from people because a connection is an affliction, or worse, an addiction. It had not occurred to me, until I met Trevor, to ask: Will I see you again? What had precluded me from asking is this: Perhaps I won't see you again, and if so, goodbye for now and goodbye forever. (查看原文)
“ONCE IN A while I get an email from someone I have met briefly. “You may not remember me,” these emails often begin, the hope to be remembered expressed by the acceptance of having already been forgotten.”
(查看原文)
No one's vulnerability Is more devastating than the next persons, no ones joy more deserving. What happens to Mcgahern is only life, which happens to us all. (查看原文)
“How could you have thought of suicide when you have people you love? How could you have forgotten those who love you? These questions were asked, again and again. But love is the wrong thing to question. One does not will oneself to love; one does not kill oneself because one ceases to love. The difficulty is that love erases: the more faded one becomes, the more easily one loves.
My muddle, in retrospect, is clear: I had underestimated my aversion to wanting anything; I had overestimated my capacity to want nothing.”
(查看原文)
“No one’s vulnerability is more devastating than the next person’s, no one’s joy more deserving. What happens to McGahern is only life, which happens to us all.”
(查看原文)
作者: Yiyun Li isbn: 0241283957 书名: Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life 页数: 240 定价: GBP 14.99 出版社: Hamish Hamilton 装帧: Hardcover 出版年: 2017-2-23
