Sadness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  She and Dad had found a place to live. Their new home, Mom said, was in an abandoned building on the Lower East Side. “It’s a tad run-down,” she admitted. “But all it really needs is a little TLC. And best of all, it’s free.” Other folks were also moving into abandoned buildings, she said. They were called squatters, and the buildings were called squats. “Your father and I are pioneers,” Mom said. “Just like my great-great-grandfather, who helped tame the Wild West.” Mom called in a few weeks and said that although the squat still needed a few finishing touches—a front door, for example—she and Dad were officially accepting visitors. I took the subway to Astor Place on a late spring day and headed east. Mom and Dad’s apartment was in a six-story walk-up. The mortar was crumbling and bricks had come loose. All the windows on the first floor had been boarded up. I reached to open the building’s front door, but where the lock and handle should have been, there was only a hole. Inside, a single naked lightbulb hung from a wire in the hallway. On one wall, chunks of plaster had crumbled away, revealing the wooden ribs and pipes and wiring. On the third floor, I knocked on the door to Mom and Dad’s apartment and heard Dad’s muffled voice. Instead of the door swinging inward, fingers appeared on both sides, and it was lifted out of the frame altogether. There was Dad, beaming and hugging me while he went on about how he’d yet to install door hinges. As a matter of fact, they’d only just gotten the door itself, which he’d found in the basement of another abandoned building. Mom came running up behind him, grinning so widely you could see her molars, and gave me a big hug. Dad knocked a cat off a chair—they had already taken in a few strays—and offered me a seat. The room was crammed with broken furniture, bundles of clothes, stacks of books, and Mom’s art supplies. Four or five electric space heaters blasted away. Mom explained that Dad had hooked up every squat in the building to an insulated cable he’d hot-wired off a utility pole down the block. “We’re all getting free juice, thanks to your father,” Mom said. “No one in the building could survive without him.” Dad chuckled modestly. He told me how complicated the process had been, because the wiring in the building was so ancient. “Damnedest electrical system I’ve ever seen,” he said. “The manual must have been written in hieroglyphics.” I looked around, and it hit me that if you replaced the electric heaters with a coal stove, this squat on the Lower East Side looked pretty much like the house on Little Hobart Street.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  Dad was at the drafting table, working on some calculations, and Mom was going through her stacks of paintings. When I told them about my plan, Dad stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and climbed out the back window without saying a word. Mom nodded and looked down, dusting off one of her paintings, murmuring something to herself. “So, what do you think?” I asked. “Fine. Go.” “What’s wrong?” “Nothing. You should go. It’s a good plan.” She seemed on the verge of tears. “Don’t be sad, Mom. I’ll write.” “I’m not upset because I’ll miss you,” Mom said. “I’m upset because you get to go to New York and I’m stuck here. It’s not fair.” • • • Lori, when I called her, approved of my plan. I could live with her, she said, if I got a job and chipped in on the rent. Brian liked my idea, too, especially when I pointed out that he could have my bed. He began making wisecracks in a lockjaw accent about how I was going to become one of those fur-wearing, pinkie-extending, nose-in-the-air New Yorkers. He began counting down the weeks until I left, just as I had counted them down for Lori. “In sixteen weeks, you’ll be in New York,” he’d say. The next week, “In three months and three weeks, you’ll be in New York.” Dad had barely spoken to me since I announced my decision. One night that spring, he came into the bedroom where I was up on my bunk studying. He had some papers rolled up under his arm. “Got a minute to look at something?” he asked. “Sure.” I followed him into the living room, where he spread the papers on the drafting table. They were his old blueprints for the Glass Castle, all stained and dog-eared. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen them. We’d stopped talking about the Glass Castle once the foundation we’d dug was filled up with garbage. “I think I finally worked out how to deal with the lack of sunlight on the hillside,” Dad said. It involved installing specially curved mirrors in the solar cells. But what he wanted to talk to me about was the plans for my room. “Now that Lori’s gone,” he said, “I’m reconfiguring the layout, and your room will be a lot bigger.” Dad’s hands trembled slightly as he unrolled different blueprints. He had drawn frontal views, side views, and aerial views of the Glass Castle. He had diagrammed the wiring and the plumbing. He had drawn the interiors of rooms and labeled them and specified their dimensions, down to the inches, in his precise, blocky handwriting. I stared at the plans. “Dad,” I said, “you’ll never build the Glass Castle.” “Are you saying you don’t have faith in your old man?” “Even if you do, I’ll be gone.

• From City of Night (1963)

  And while the man goes on trying to sing, a Negro fairy goes through the motions of a strip; and like an Indian doing a frantic war-dance, a harpy rocks and rolls about the neon-flashing jukebox—a badge across her desiccated breast proclaiming her name pitifully: “BEATRICE.” Mrs Haversham has rousted herself onto the stage to strum a guitar, producing an anarchy of sounds. A sadfaced man, surprisingly welldressed, guiltily buys drinks for all the derelicts around him, while a sullen old woman huddles against a cubicle, menacing with a fist anyone who approaches her. “Beatrice,” now on the stage, hopped like a puppet. A fat old fairy stares longingly at the young drifters and bursts uncontrollably into tears, the sound of his crying drowned (his pain reduced to paroxysmal pantomime) by a brownfaced man who howls like an Indian as Beatrice hops loose-limbly on the stage.... A mountainous woman calls out to a man across the bar: “Wottayalookinat?” “You, honey, I wanna kiss you.” “Kiss-my ass!” she roars (and Beatrice, still on the stage, wiggles hers for emphasis). “Okay,” the man says, getting up, “where?” The fat woman shakes her giant butt: “Cant miss it, baby,” she says, “Im ALL ass.”... Still hopping convulsively, Beatrice is ushered off the stage by the announcer. A fastidious man, in elegant tatters, sends back his beer because the glass is dirty. The waiter stares incredulously at him. Next on the stage are two skinny drunk men, leaning on each other singing plaintively: “Those far away places—...” Like a chipped record, repeating: “Far, far, farrrrr away places—... Far away—...” And cant go on. A Negro woman, perched like a crow on a stool next to a tattooed sailor, feels suddenly beautiful at his attentions (she smiles, rolls her round eyes in pleasure) as he strokes her butt, which she squirms deliriously—but stops its movements abruptly at the thud of the two drunk men collapsing on the stage. Against a wall a faded blonde woman—an exiled angel, the hints of beauty still lingering on her palewhite face—sits with blackoutlined eyes burning into the bar. A young tramp, drunk—the mark of premature doom stamped on his face which resembles James Dean’s (I have seen him before—hustling Main Street in Los Angeles—but he looked much younger then)—offers her a beer, paid for with a few coins I saw him clinch only moments earlier from the Negro fairy. The woman takes the beer wordlessly, her gaze piercingly buried beyond the bar. Now on the stage a fleshy woman is trying to do a belly-dance. Someone hooted: “TAKE HER OFF!” and misinterpreting the harsh command, she began to do a strip....

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  C. He poses the question: Does the life of happiness exist, therefore, in memory? 1. This kind of memory is not the same as remembering the city of Carthage after we have seen it. 2. This kind of memory is not memory of a corporeal object. VI. Augustine reflects on the passions and memory. A. He considers the fact that he can write about remembered emotions, such as sadness and fear, without reliving the pain of the time in which they occurred. B. With the faculty of memory, events can mean more to us later then they did at the outset. C. At a different level, every event before Augustine’s conversion exists in a new light after he becomes a Christian. VII. In his discussion of memory, Augustine gives a catalogue of sense impressions. A. He warns of unrestrained curiosity as a characteristic that may lead one astray. B. He struggles, for example, over the question of whether music is a distraction. VIII. Memory, intellect, and will are key elements in the Augustinian world. A. These three qualities neatly reflect the religious symbol of the Trinity. B. Augustine compares memory to God the Father; intellect, to God the Son; and will, to the Holy Spirit. IX. Memory is part of mind. A. The mind is unable to totally grasp itself. B. How can we use the mind to find out about the mind? C. We will never be able to fully plumb the depths of the mind. Suggested Readings: See readings for Lecture Nineteen. Dixon, chapter 8. ©2004 The Teaching Company. 63 Questions to Consider: 1. Why is a discussion of memory appropriate in Book X of the Confessions? 2. Why is memory ultimately not something that can ever fully be explained, according to Augustine? 3. According to Augustine, what makes memory such a fascinating subject? 4. What are some of the major paradoxes that Augustine associates with memory? 64 ©2004 The Teaching Company.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  Before s/he tells us that s/he h/erself was abandoned by h/er mother quickly and without advance notice, s/he tells us that for reasons unstated s/he spent a few years in a house for abandoned and orphaned children. S/he refers to the “poor creatures, deprived from their cradle of a mother’s love.” In the next sentence s/he refers to this institution as a “refuge [asile] of suffering and affliction,” and in the following sentence refers to h/er father “whom a sudden death tore away ... from the tender affection of my mother” (4). Although h/er own abandonment is twice deflected here through the pity for others who are suddenly rendered motherless, s/he establishes an identification through that deflection, one that later reappears as the joint plight of father and daughter cut off from the maternal caress. The deflections of desire are semantically compounded, as it were, as Herculine proceeds to fall in love with “mother” after “mother” and then falls in love with various mothers’ “daughters,” which scandalizes all manner of mother. Indeed, s/he vacillates between being the object of everyone’s adoration and excitement and an object of scorn and abandonment, the split consequence of a melancholic structure left to feed on itself without intervention. If melancholy involves self-recrimination, as Freud argues, and if that recrimination is a kind of negative narcissism (attending to the self, even if only in the mode of berating that self), then Herculine can be understood to be constantly falling into the opposition between negative and positive narcissism, at once avowing h/erself as the most abandoned and neglected creature on earth but also as the one who casts a spell of enchantment on

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  “How come?” “Because we’re not selling it.” She was keeping it, she explained, to replace the wedding ring her mother had given her, the one Dad had pawned shortly after they got married. “But Mom,” I said, “that ring could get us a lot of food.” “That’s true,” Mom said, “but it could also improve my self-esteem. And at times like these, self-esteem is even more vital than food.” • • • Mom’s self-esteem did need some shoring up. Sometimes, things just got to her. She retreated to her sofa bed and stayed there for days on end, crying and occasionally throwing things at us. She could have been a famous artist by now, she yelled, if she hadn’t had children, and none of us appreciated her sacrifice. The next day, if the mood had passed, she’d be painting and humming away as if nothing had happened. One Saturday morning not long after Mom started wearing her new diamond ring, her mood was on an upswing, and she decided we’d all clean the house. I thought this was a great idea. I told Mom we should empty out each room, clean it thoroughly, and put back only the things that were essential. That was the one way, it seemed to me, to get rid of the clutter. But Mom said my idea was too time-consuming, so all we ended up doing was straightening piles of paper into stacks and stuffing dirty clothes into the chest of drawers. Mom insisted that we chant Hail Marys while we worked. “It’s a way of cleansing our souls while we’re cleaning house,” she said. “We’re killing two birds with one stone.” The reason she had become a tad moody, she said later that day, was that she hadn’t been getting enough exercise. “I’m going to start doing calisthenics,” she announced. “Once you get your circulation going, it changes your entire outlook on life.” She leaned over and touched her toes. When she came up, she said she was feeling better already, and went down for another toe touch. I watched from the writing desk with my arms folded across my chest. I knew the problem was not that we all had poor circulation. We didn’t need to start doing toe touches. We needed to take drastic measures. I was twelve by now, and I had been weighing our options, doing some research at the public library and picking up scraps of information about how other families on Little Hobart Street survived. I had come up with a plan and had been waiting for the opportunity to broach it to Mom. The moment seemed ripe. “Mom, we can’t go on living like this,” I said. “It’s not so bad,” she said. Between each toe touch, she was reaching up into the air. “We haven’t had anything to eat but popcorn for three days,” I said. “You’re always so negative,” she said. “You remind me of my mother—criticize, criticize, criticize.” “I’m not being negative,” I said.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  This was Rosina. ‘Nancy’ll think you don’t like it, otherwise.’ ‘It’s all right,’ I said quickly. ‘Let her try it later.’ But George had jumped over to Alice’s chair, taken the hat from her, and now tried to set it on her head. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I want to see if you look like a buffalo in it.’ ‘Leave off!’ said Alice. There was a scuffle. I closed my eyes, heard the rip of stitches, and when next I looked my sister had the bonnet in her lap, and George had half the ostrich feather in his fingers. The chip of diamante had flown off, and been lost. Poor George began to gulp and cough; Rosina said sternly that she hoped that he was satisfied. Liza took the hat and the feather and tried awkwardly to reunite them: ‘Such a pretty bonnet,’ she said. Alice started to sniff, then placed her hands before her eyes and hurried from the room. Father said, ‘Well, now!’; he still held his gleaming watch-guard. Mother looked at me and shook her head. ‘What a shame,’ she said. ‘Oh Nancy, what a shame!’ In time Rosina and the cousins left, and Alice, still rather swollen-eyed, went out to call on a friend. I took my bags up to my old room, and washed my face; when I came down a little later, the presents I had brought had all been tidied out of sight, and Rhoda was helping Mother peel and boil potatoes in the kitchen. They shooed me away when I offered to join them, and said I was a guest; and so I sat with Father and Davy - who seemed to think that keeping to their usual habits, and hiding themselves behind the Sunday papers, would put me at my ease. We had our dinner, then took a walk to Tankerton and sat pitching stones into the water. The sea was grey as lead; far out upon it there were a couple of yawls and barges - bound for London, where Kitty was. What was she doing now, I wondered, apart from missing me? Later there was tea, after which more cousins appeared, to thank me for their presents and to beg for a look at my handsome new clothes. We sat upstairs and I showed them my frocks, my hat with the veil upon it, and my painted stockings. There was more talk about young men. Alice, I learned - they were surprised she hadn’t told me this - had finished with Tony Reeves from the Palace, and had started stepping out with a boy who worked at the shipyard; he was much taller, they said, than Tony, but not as funny.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Cuando no respondo, me mira. —Te veré en la mañana. Camina hacia la puerta de atrás, y siento que me han pateado. Siento que nunca más volveré a verla. Corro detrás de ella, tomándola de la mano y deteniéndola. —No —se lo ruego—. Jesús, no quise decir eso. Jordan, yo... tú lo vales. Yo solo... —Sacudo la cabeza—. No lo sé. —Está bien —dice, sonando tan tranquila que tengo miedo—. Realmente lo está. Debería agradecerte, en realidad. He estado tratando durante años, al parecer, ser el tipo de mujer que admiro, y de repente, siento que soy esa mujer ahora. Sé que lo valgo Simplemente tú no. Se mueve para alejarse, y la detengo de nuevo. —Jordan. Esta vez se da vuelta, levantando la cabeza y tirando de su mano fuera de mi alcance. —Díselo ahora —exige. El aire sale de mis pulmones con el ultimátum. —Dile que estás conmigo ahora —dice—, para que pueda ir a nuestra cama, y podamos ir a dormir y mañana podamos comenzar a avanzar, porque todo estará hecho, y no tendremos que preocuparnos más por eso. —Sus ojos me desafían—. Díselo ahora. Abro la boca para hablar. Para decirle que lo haré. Voy a marchar ahora mismo y decirle la verdad a mi hijo. Creo que la amo y lo siento, no quise lastimarla. Pero sé que tengo razón. Regresará a la escuela a tiempo completo en dos meses, conocerá hombres educados que tendrán toda la vida por delante. No voy a arruinar a mi familia cuando aún no sé qué es esto. No tiene derecho a pedirme eso. Comienza a retroceder, el azul en sus ojos como hielo. —Es tan increíble lo rápido que puede suceder, ¿no? —dice mientras me deja lentamente—. Cómo no siento absolutamente nada por ti ahora. —No te ves tan bien, dulzura. Levanto la mirada del refrigerador donde estoy colocando las botellas de cerveza de una caja, y le doy a Grady una débil sonrisa. —Nada que una caja de Thin Mints no pueda arreglar —le digo. O un contenedor de helado Sherbert o Pike entrando aquí justo ahora, tomándome en sus brazos frente a todos y diciéndome que me ama. Dios, estoy tan cansada. Y agotada. No pude soportar mirarlo anoche y no quería nada más que estar lejos de él y fuera de su vida. Tomé mi VW recién reparado y me quedé en casa de mi hermana y luego vine a trabajar a las diez para alistarme para el turno del almuerzo y he estado aquí durante doce horas, quedándome mucho después de lo que el horario dictaba. Mi ira y mi resolución siguen ahí, pero ahora también la tristeza. Lo extraño. Pero me odio más. Lo amo y lo deseo, pero... No puedo estar cerca de él. Me hace reír y cuando estoy con él, me siento como en casa. Como si fuera lo único en mi vida que entiendo. Pero ya no me entiendo. Alguien tiene que pelear por mí, para variar.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —No te ves tan bien, dulzura. Levanto la mirada del refrigerador donde estoy colocando las botellas de cerveza de una caja, y le doy a Grady una débil sonrisa. —Nada que una caja de Thin Mints no pueda arreglar —le digo. O un contenedor de helado Sherbert o Pike entrando aquí justo ahora, tomándome en sus brazos frente a todos y diciéndome que me ama. Dios, estoy tan cansada. Y agotada. No pude soportar mirarlo anoche y no quería nada más que estar lejos de él y fuera de su vida. Tomé mi VW recién reparado y me quedé en casa de mi hermana y luego vine a trabajar a las diez para alistarme para el turno del almuerzo y he estado aquí durante doce horas, quedándome mucho después de lo que el horario dictaba. Mi ira y mi resolución siguen ahí, pero ahora también la tristeza. Lo extraño. Pero me odio más. Lo amo y lo deseo, pero... No puedo estar cerca de él. Me hace reír y cuando estoy con él, me siento como en casa. Como si fuera lo único en mi vida que entiendo. Pero ya no me entiendo. Alguien tiene que pelear por mí, para variar. No voy a volver. —Te fuiste sin cerrar la cuenta antes de irte la última vez —dice Grady, sacando dinero de su billetera—. Aquí está tu propina. Desliza un par de billetes de veinte por la barra, cierro el refrigerador y me río entre dientes, mis ojos se sienten pesados por el cansancio. —Grady, ni siquiera se me ocurrió —le digo—. No te preocupes por cosas así. Estoy feliz de que estés aquí. Lo cual es cierto, me evita tener que forzar conversación con alguien más mientras estoy trabajando. No coquetea, ni hace comentarios groseros y le gusta mi música en la rocola.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Ed HE CAN SEE HER HANDS moving. She’s talking to Nathan. Does she still feel guilty for those summers away? He hopes not. He should tell her Nathan understood. Nathan always defended her. Took off after Tawny every time she bad mouthed Vix. How that boy loved her! He remembers taking the two of them on a camping trip in the RV. Nathan must have been six or seven. The way they’d laughed together! Vix, pushing him along a trail in his chair, uphill, then down ... too fast ... too fast ... The surprise when he’d fallen. The fear in her eyes. Turned out to be only a bruised elbow. Decided not to tell Tawny. Their secret. Just the three of them. How much does she know about Tawny and him? Did Lanie tell her he’s seeing someone? Not that he wants it this way. He wants Tawny to come home. But she says it’s over. They should both try to make new lives. What does that mean ... a new life? A new life with Frankie? Frankie’s okay. Makes him laugh. Long time since a woman made him laugh. What about Vix and the boyfriend? Does she love him? He can’t tell. Hard to believe she’s a junior at Harvard. His daughter. A good kid, Vix. Maybe not a kid anymore. A woman. Yes. She looks like a woman now. He can feel the tears starting. Tawny hates it when he cries. Calls him weak. Maybe he is weak. So what? How come he can’t talk to them ... to his daughters? Do they know he loves them? Especially Vix. Does she know? ON THE WAY HOME her father said, “He’s a nice boy.” At first she thought

• From The Case for God (2009)

  28 The authors of the four gospels later attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were Jewish Christians who wrote in Greek, read the Bible in its Greek translation, and lived in the Hellenistic cities of the Near East. 29 Mark was written in about 70; Matthew and Luke in the 80s; and John in the late 90s. The gospels were not biographies in our sense but should, rather, be seen as commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. Like Paul, the evangelists searched the scriptures to find any mention of a christos— be it a king, prophet, or priest—who had been “anointed” in the past by God for a special mission and was now seen to be a coded prediction of Jesus. They believed that Jesus’s life and death had been foretold in the four servant songs, and some even thought that he was the Word and Wisdom of God, who had descended to earth in human form. This was not simply a clever exercise in public relations. Jews had long realized that all religious discourse was basically interpretive. They had always looked for new meaning in the ancient texts during a crisis, and the basic methodology of Christian pesher (“deciphering”) exegesis, which had also been practiced by the Qumran sectarians, was not unlike Greek “bricolage” or rabbinical midrash. Above all, it was a spiritual exercise. Luke has shown the way it may have worked in his story of a numinous encounter on the road to Emmaus. 30 Three days after Jesus’s crucifixion, two of his disciples had been walking sadly from Jerusalem to the nearby village of Emmaus and had fallen in with a stranger who asked them why they were so despondent. They explained what had happened to Jesus, the man they thought had been the messiah. The stranger gently rebuked them: Did they not realize that the scriptures had foretold that the christos would suffer before attaining his glory? Starting with Moses, he began to expound “the full message” of the prophets, and later the disciples recalled how their hearts had “burned” within them when he had “opened” the scriptures to them in this way. When they arrived at their destination, they begged the stranger to dine with them, and it was only when he blessed the bread that they realized it was Jesus himself, but that their “eyes had been held” from recognizing him. Like the rabbis, the Christians gathered “in twos and threes” to decipher the old texts. As they conversed together, the scriptures would “open” and bring them fresh insight. This illumination might last only a moment—just as Jesus had vanished as soon as the disciples had recognized him—but the act of bringing hitherto unconnected texts together to form an unexpected harmony gave them intimations of the coincidentia oppositorum that had characterized the temple experience. Apparent contradictions locked together in the luminous “wholeness” of shalom. The stranger had a crucial role.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  crowded their house was, with small, high, north-facing windows, making it dark and cold year-round, even in relentlessly sunny Santa Fe. She knew next to nothing about her parents’ early lives. Whenever Vix asked her mother a personal question Tawny answered, “We don’t wash our linen in public.” “I’m not public,” Vix argued. “I’m family. I’m your daughter.” “You know enough,” Tawny told her. “You know what’s important. Besides, curiosity killed the cat.” But satisfaction brought her back again, Vix thought, not that she’d dare say it out loud. If she did, Tawny would shout, That’s enough, Victoria! So she quit asking questions. What was the point? Sometimes she tried to imagine Tawny on the day she graduated from high school, boarding the first bus out of Tulsa and traveling as far as her money would take her, all the way to Albuquerque, where, thanks to her typing and shorthand skills, which Tawny reminded them of regularly, she found a job working for a young lawyer. Seven years later she was still working for him. By then she was engaged to Ed Leonard, a Sioux City boy, polite and nice-enough looking, whom she’d met at a dance at Kirtland Air Force Base. They were married by a justice of the peace when Ed got out of the service. The young lawyer, who wasn’t that young anymore, threw a party for them in his backyard. Tawny didn’t invite Darlene. Didn’t even tell Ed her mother was living. Then came the dead babies, three in five years, born before they were old enough to breathe on their own. Vix and Lanie used to play The Dead Baby Game the way other kids played A, My Name is Alice, reciting the names Tawny and Ed had chosen for their babies. William Edward, Bonnie Karen, James Howard. They’d just about given up hope when Vix was born, strong and healthy, a survivor. Lanie and Lewis followed. They moved to Santa Fe where Ed landed a job selling insurance. And then they had Nathan. Her father used to joke about making the Millionaire’s Club, selling a million dollars’ worth of insurance in one year. Then he might win a vacation to some exotic resort, maybe even to Hawaii. If he did, he promised he’d take all of them. Vix dreamed about that vacation until the insurance company went under and her father was out of work for close to a year. Tawny was lucky to find a job working for the Countess.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  another who had treated her like a servant. Scrubbing clothes on a washboard until her knuckles bled—that was the preeminent memory of Erma’s childhood. The best thing Grandpa did for her when they got married was buy her an electric washing machine, but whatever joy it had once given her was long gone. “Erma can’t let go of her misery,” Mom said. “It’s all she knows.” She added that you should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. “Everyone has something good about them,” she said. “You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.” “Oh yeah?” I said. “How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality?” “Hitler loved dogs,” Mom said without hesitation.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Reduced to a mere explanation—to what would later be called First Cause or Prime Mover—he became Deus otiosus, a “useless” or “superfluous” deity, and gradually faded from the consciousness of his people. In most mythologies, the High God is often depicted as a passive, helpless figure; unable to control events, he retreats to the periphery of the pantheon and finally fades away. Today some of the indigenous peoples—Pygmies, Aboriginal Australians, and Fuegians— also speak of a High God who created heaven and earth, but, they tell anthropologists, he has died or disappeared; he “no longer cares” and “has gone far away from us.” 40 No god can survive unless he or she is actualized by the practical activity of ritual, and people often turn against gods who fail to deliver. The High God is often mythologically deposed, sometimes violently, by a younger generation of more dynamic deities—gods of storm, grain, or war—who symbolized relevant, important realities. In Greek mythos, the High God Uranus (“Heaven”) was brutally castrated by his son Kronos. Later Kronos himself was overthrown by his own son Zeus, head of the younger gods who lived more accessibly on Mount Olympus. In our own day, the God of the monotheistic tradition has often degenerated into a High God. The rites and practices that once made him a persuasive symbol of the sacred are no longer effective, and people have stopped participating in them. He has therefore become otiosus, an etiolated reality who for all intents and purposes has indeed died or “gone away.” In the ancient world, the High God myth was replaced by more relevant creation stories that were never regarded as factual. As one of the later hymns of the Rig Veda insists, nobody—not even the highest deva—could explain how something had issued from nothing. 41 A good creation myth did not describe an event in the distant past but told people something essential about the present. It reminded them that things often had to get worse before they got better, that creativity demanded self-sacrifice and heroic struggle, and that everybody had to work hard to preserve the energies of the cosmos and establish society on a sound foundation. A creation story was primarily therapeutic. People wanted to tap into the massive implosion of energy that had—somehow—brought the world we know into being, so they would recite a creation myth when they were in need of an infusion of sacred potency: during a political crisis, at a sickbed, or when they were building a new house.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Me pasa trescientos dólares, y tenemos un letrero que dice que no aceptamos billetes mayores de cincuenta, pero viendo la cantidad de dinero en su billetera, no me siento cómoda al decírselo. Tomo el dinero y le doy el cambio. Da golpecitos sobre el mostrador mientras espera, y me doy cuenta que está siguiendo el ritmo de The Distance por Cake que Danni colocó en el altavoz del lobby. —Oh, no haga eso —bromeo, dándole su cambio—. Alentará al dueño. Estoy intentado convencerla que su música está alejando a los clientes. Toma el dinero y me lanza una mirada. —La música de los noventa es la mejor. Es cuando las personas decían la verdad. Curvo la comisura de mis labios, sin querer discutir más. Claramente él bebió del mismo Kool-Aid que ella. —Gracias —dice, tomando las llaves. Le regreso su identificación, y lo observo alejarse. Afuera, reparte las llaves a las señoritas, y después de un momento, todos se dirigen a sus habitaciones. Estoy medio tentada a ir a la ventana y ver si va con una de ellas. O las cinco de ellas. Tengo mucha curiosidad. —¿Era un cliente? —pregunta Danni detrás de mí, y miró hacia atrás, viéndola caminar a la oficina. El departamento donde vive con su abuela está detrás de la oficina, así que es fácil pasar y revisar si se necesita algo. —Sí —le digo—. Pidió cinco habitaciones para la noche, y está viajando con al menos media docena de mujeres, así que diviértete con el turno nocturno. Se burla y camina, tomando el contrato. —¿Tyler Durden? —Lee su nombre, entrecerrando los ojos por encima de sus lentes. Asiento, jalando un cabello de su camisa de franela. Ella incluso se viste como en los noventa. —¿No tomaste su identificación? —Me hace una mueca—. Es un nombre falso. —Su identificación decía Tyler Durden —digo—. ¿Por qué piensas que es un nombre falso? —Tyler Durden es el personaje principal en Fight Club —dice, como si fuera una idiota—. La mejor película de los noventa, y uno de los mejores libros. Es desconcertante que no sepas eso, Jordan. Me río, moviendo la cabeza. Ella quizás sea un año mayor que yo, pero estamos a mundos de distancia en intereses. Fight Club. Mi sonrisa se desvanece, y bajo la mirada, regresando a la computadora. He visto la película, pero ese nombre no me sonaba. Y había visto recientemente la película también, con Pike… Trago. Siento un nudo en el pecho. Mierda. Había estado bastante bien las últimas semanas, girando mi atención a otra parte, para no pensar en él. Había sido tan difícil al inicio, pero no verlo todos los días lo había vuelto más fácil. Fue correcto haberme ido como lo hice.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  When they turned their attention to religion, all three were liable to depart from the precision that characterized their discussion of science, so their critique was marred by wild generalizations. When he read Haeckel’s best seller The Riddle of the Universe, the philosopher Friedrich Paulsen said that he burned with shame to think that it had been written by a German scholar in the land of scholarship.77 Haeckel had, for example, argued that at the Council of Nicaea, the bishops had compiled the New Testament by simply picking the four gospels at random from a pile of forged documents—information he had acquired from an exceptionally scurrilous English pamphlet. He even got the date of Nicaea wrong. When he discussed science, Haeckel was careful, methodical, and accurate; none of these qualities was in evidence when he wrote about religion. Huxley had little time for this polemic, because he understood that no investigation of the physical world could provide evidence for or against God. He thought Draper a bore, Vogt a fool, and utterly despised Büchner’s best-selling Force and Matter, which argued that the universe had no purpose, that everything had derived from a single cell, and that only an idiot could believe in God. Pascal had explained that “the heart has its reasons” for beliefs that were not accessible to our reasoning powers, and this also seems true of late-nineteenth-century unbelief. The proselytizing atheists did not exemplify the precision, objectivity, and impartial examination of the evidence that was now characteristic of the scientific rationalism they glorified. Nevertheless, their emotional diatribes attracted huge crowds. There had always been an intolerant strain in modernity; it had long seemed necessary to abjure recent orthodoxy as a condition for the creation of new truth. Atheism was still a minority passion, but people who nurtured subterranean doubts yet were not ready to let their faith go may have found this passionate critique vicariously cathartic. Others relinquished their faith with sorrow and felt no Promethean defiance, no heady liberation. In “Dover Beach,” the British poet Matthew Arnold (1822–88) heard the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” of faith as it receded, bringing “the eternal note of sadness in.” Human beings could only cling to one another for comfort, for the world that once seemed So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.78 At its best, religion had helped people to build within themselves a haven of peace that enabled them to live creatively with the sorrow of life; but during the scientific age, that interiorized security had been exchanged for an unsustainable certainty. As their faith ebbed, many Victorians sensed the void that it left behind.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —¿Estás seguro? —Levanto la botella, dándole un trago. Me encanta que esté haciendo algo con su vida, pero también quiero asegurarme que esté haciendo su propio camino. Continúa. —Ahí es donde Jordan y yo nunca tuvimos sentido. Ella sabía lo que estaba en su mente, y lo resentía cuando estaba con ella, porque yo nunca lo supe. —Deja escapar un suspiro—. Yo no era su igual, nunca lo suficientemente bueno para ella. Nunca sería lo suficientemente fuerte mentalmente. Algunos de nosotros simplemente no lo somos. Mi corazón se detiene ante sonido de su nombre, pero lo ignoro. No estoy seguro de que unirse a los militares fuera algo que realmente quisiera hacer con su vida, pero estoy seguro que no estaba encontrando respuestas en este pueblo. Al menos lo sabía. Fue lo suficientemente fuerte para dar ese salto. —Tú hiciste eso, ¿no es así? —pregunto—. Lograste pasar el entrenamiento. Estoy orgulloso de ti. Veo su manzana de Adán subir y bajar, y los músculos de su mandíbula moverse. Toma otro sorbo, todavía sin mirarme. —Entonces, ¿dónde está? —pregunta, echando un vistazo a la sala como si todavía estuviera en la casa. —No lo sé. —Muevo la cabeza—. Se fue después de ti. No la he visto en dos meses. Su mirada brinca a la mía, su ceño fruncido en preocupación. —He hablado con su hermana —lo tranquilizo—. Ella está bien. Donde sea que se encuentre. Parece aceptar la respuesta, porque toma otro trago. Pero ahora, me siento más desanimado. Está claro que tampoco ha mantenido contacto con Cole. No es que pensara que seguían en contacto después de todo, pero eran amigos. Dependiente del otro en algún momento. Entre más lazos corte, menos razones tendrá para regresar. —¿Estás viendo a alguien más? —pregunta. —Nop, no en este momento. —Doy otro sorbo—. Solo concentrándome en la casa y los negocios. —Sí, me encontré con Dutch de camino al pueblo, me dijo que están adelantados por dos años.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  Mr. H..., content, however, with having the day break upon his triumph, resigned me up to the refreshment of a rest we both wanted, and we soon dropped into a profound sleep. Though he was some time awake before me, yet he did not offer to disturb a repose he had given me so much occasion for; but on my first stirring, which was not till past ten o’clock, I was obliged to endure one more trial of his manhood. About eleven, in came Mrs. Jones, with two basins of the richest soup, which her experience in these matters had moved her to prepare. I pass over the fulsome compliments, the cant of the decent procuress, with which she saluted us both; but though my blood rose at the sight of her, I supprest my emotions, and gave all my concerne to reflections on what would be the consequence of this new engagement. But Mr. H..., who penetrated my uneasiness, did not suffer me to languish under it, and acquainted me, that having taken a solid sincere affection to me, he would begin by giving me one leading mark of it, in removing me out of a house which must, for many reasons, be irksome and disagreeable to me, into convenient lodgings, where he would take all imaginable care of me; and desiring not to have any explanations with my landlady, or be impatient till he returned, he dressed and went out, having left me a purse with two and twenty guineas in it, being all he had about him, as he express it, to keep my pocket still further supplied. As soon as he was gone, I felt the usual consequence of the first launch into vice (for my love attachment to Charles never appeared to me in that light). I was instantly borne away down the stream without making back to the shore. My dreadful necessities, my gratitude, and above all, to say the plain truth, the dissipation and diversion I began to find in this new acquaintance, from the black corroding thoughts my heart had been a prey to, ever since the absence of my dear Charles, concurred to stun all my contrary reflections. If I now thought of my first, my only charmer, it was still with the tenderness and regret of the fondest love, embittered with the consciousness that I was no longer worthy of him. I could have begged my bread with him all over the world, but wretch that I was! I had neither the virtue or courage requisite not to outlive my separation from him. Yet, had not my heart been thus preengaged, Mr. H... might probably have been the sole master of it; but the place was full, and the force of conjectures alone had made him the possessor of my person; the charms of which had, by the bye, been his sole object and passion, and were, of course, no foundation for a love either very delicate or very durable.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “Can you imagine?” Miss Destiny says to me. “She offered him a Cadillac! Pauline! Who hasnt even got enough to keep her dragclothes in proper shape!... But nevuhmind, let him be gullible (thats someone who believes untrue stories). And, besides,” she says with a toss of her head, “I flipped over Sandy, a bad new stud.... But Chuck’s still jealous of me—he knows Im looking for a new husband—now that poor Sandy (my most recent ex, dear) got busted, and I know he didnt have any hard narcotics on him like they say he did—they planted them in his car—... Shake that moneymakuh, honey!—” (this to a spadequeen swishing by) “—and I still love my Sandy—did the best I could, tried to bail him out, hire a good attuhnee, but it was no good—they laughed when I said he was my husband. The quality of muhcee is mighty strained indeed—as the dear Portia said (from Shakespeare, my dears—a very Great writer who wrote ladies’ roles for dragqueens in his time). And it breaks my heart to think of my poor Sandy in the joint away from women all that time, him so redhot he might turn queer, but oh no not my Sandy, hes all stud. If I know him, he’ll come out of the joint rich, hustling the guards.... And I tried to be faithful—but the years will be so long—and what can a girl do, and restless the way I am?—restless and crying muhself to sleep night aftuh night, missing him—missing him. But my dears, I realize I Will Have To Go On—he would want it that way. Well, queens have died eaten by the ah worm of ah love, as the Lovely Cleopatra said—she was The Queen of Ancient Egypt—” (quoting, misquoting Shakespeare—saying it was a lovely he-roine who said it in the play—taking it for granted—a safe assumption in her world—that no one will understand her anyway). “Then Miss Thing said to me (Miss Thing is a fairy perched on my back like some people have a monkey or a conscience),” she explained, “well, Miss Thing said to me, ‘Miss Destiny dear, dont be a fool, fix your lovey rair and find you a new husband—make it permanent this time by really getting Married—and even if you have to stretch your unemployment, dont allow him to push or hustle’ (which breaks up a marriage)—and Miss Thing said, ‘Miss Destiny dear, have a real wedding this time.’... A real wedding,” Miss Destiny sighed wistfully. “Like every young girl should have at least once.... And when it happens oh it will be the most simpuhlee Fabulous wedding the Westcoast has evuh seen! with oh the most beautiful queens as bridesmaids! and the handsomest studs as ushers! (and you will absolutely have to remove chose boots, Chuck)—and Me! ... Me... in virgin-white... coming down a winding staircase... carrying a white bouquet!... and my family will be crying for joy.... And there will be champagne! cake! a real priest to puhfawm the Ceremony!—” She broke off abruptly, shutting her eyes deliriously as if to visualize the scene better. Then she opened them again, onto the frantic teeming world of Pershing Square....

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘In his youth Chaucer wrote about Ceyx and Alcion. Ceyx was lost at sea, and Alcion threw herself into the waves in grief. Since he has written about so many star-crossed lovers, so many noble women and their paramours, why repeat him now? If anyone should open that hefty volume of his, The Legend of Good Women, he will come across Lucretia, who was raped, and Thisbe, who died for love. He loves sad stories. You can read in that book of poor Dido, who fell upon her sword after the treachery of Aeneas, and of Phyllis, who hanged herself from the branches of a tree. You can follow the laments of Dianire and Hermyon, of Adriana and Isiphilee. It is, as I said, a very long book. You can read about the barren island in the middle of the sea, and how Leander drowned himself for love of Hero. What else is there? I could mention the tears of lovely Helen and the woes of false Cressida. I could relate the cruelty of wicked Queen Medea, who hanged her own children for revenge when Jason abandoned her. It is not all doom and gloom, though. Geoffrey Chaucer does manage to praise the faithfulness of Penelope and Alceste. ‘There is one story that he does not tell. He refuses to mention the wicked love of Canacee for her own brother. Well, incest is no fit matter. That is why he does not write about Tyro Appollonius and King Antioch. That cursed monarch took the virginity of his own daughter. Can you believe it? It is too horrible to talk about, especially that moment when he threw her down on the floor and began to -. Excuse me. Chaucer thought about including these stories, but then decided against them. I know that John Gower narrates them, but Gower is not known for his good taste. Chaucer would never sully his writings with such abominations. How do I know? I just know. I will follow his example, in any case, and say no more about them. ‘How shall I begin my own story? I will not repeat Chaucer. I have said that already. I don’t want to be compared to those braggarts who thought that they could rival the Muses and were turned into magpies for their insolence. I will become no bird. And I don’t really care if I fall far short of him. Better a dull dish than no dish at all. Let him stick to his poetry. I will use plain prose.’ So the Man of Law, with a solemn countenance, began the story that you are about to hear. The prologe of the Mannes Tale of Lawe