The Book of L and F

 ...was not that he hadnt loved her, but that he had. By erasing her from his mind, he erased his love for her. Fe airbrushing her out of the picture in the same way the Party propaganda section airbrushed Clementis from the balcony where Gottwald gave historic speech. Mirek is as much a rewriter of history as the Communist Party, all political parties, all nations, all men. People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It’s not true The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. They are fighting for access to the laboratones where photographs are retouched and biographies and histones te written. 

How long did he stop there at the station? 

What did his stop there mean? It meant nothing. 

He immediately airbrushes it from his mind and forgets completely about the white house with the begonias. Once again he is speeding through the countryside without looking to either side. Once again space is merely an obstacle to his progress. 

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Things deprived suddenly of their putative meaning, the place assigned them in the ostensible order of things (a Moscowtrained Marxist who believes in horoscopes), make us laugh. Initially, therefore, laughter is the province of the Devil. It has a certain malice to it (things have turned out differently from the way they tried to seem), but a certain beneficent relief as well (things are looser than they seemed, we have greater latitude in living with them, their gravity does not oppress us). . 

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“Ever since Joyce,” he said, “we have been aware of the fact that the greatest adventure in our lives is the absence of adventure. Odysseus fought at Troy, made his way home on‘a ship he himself piloted, had a mistress on every island—no, such is not the life we live. Homer’s Odyssey now takes place within man. Man has internalized it. The islands, the sea, the sirens seducing us, and Ithaca calling us home—they have all been reduced to voices within us.” 

 

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 It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life - and herein lies it's secret - takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it; it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch.