Toward the end of the book there is a terrible accident and at last, after hundreds of pages of serious frivolity, there is real weight in the story. Afterwards, the widower says, “Accidents do happen. They are not our fault, but we find that hard to believe. We are frightened of things out of our control.” He is meant to be comforting another, and his words are common. It’s something people say, after an accident. The sentences struck me, though. They seemed to belong so completely to the members of the Potter family. These people, even more than others, are frightened of things they cannot name and know. They take refuge in learning, in putting things into categories, in studying forms. The physical world threatens. It is too vast and complicated to take in at once. It offers too much; it has to be taken in piecemeal. But moments of accident, or of emotion, destroy the illusion that the pieces are connected by anything other than fragile, mistaken thought.
10 October 2009
5
Books I met: still life, A.S. Byatt
Toward the end of the book there is a terrible accident and at last, after hundreds of pages of serious frivolity, there is real weight in ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment