Inkanta
Group: Admins
Posts: 1453
Joined: Feb. 2000 |
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Posted: Nov. 20 2005, 20:14 |
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Louise Erdrich is one of my favorite authors, and inevitably, there are a few passages in her books that give me the sensation of being hit with a bucket of cold water. So much within her novels transcends any given context. This is from her latest, The Painted Drum, and comprises words that a mother might wish to impart to her child but doesn’t (in this case, to Faye, who lost a sister tragically in childhood and has a hard time letting people in). “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”
-------------- "No such thing as destiny; only choices exist." From: Moongarden's "Solaris."
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