August 19, 2004
The liqueur of the literaryLiterature
Abhi, one of our bloggers, has a great post on the film Before Sunset and the absinthe of fiction. He just posted it, hasn't told me about it or asked me to link it, but it's deliciously, deliriously romantic:
Fiction is a heartless charlatan... You are incapable of a normal relationship because normal is a pale substitution for what already flows in your veins: possibility... Years later you don't fit anymore. You stand out like a heroin addict on a Friday night, wearing long sleeves so no one will notice.
On losing a deep connection:
Is it possible that you can experience a period of time so perfect, so idealized, that it stains your soul with a color that nothing else can ever match? If so, aren't you screwed for the rest of your days?... [A]ll the things that I spend the majority of my Time doing, are really motivated by one thing. Finding a color to match the stain.
On Before Sunrise, which still plays pied piper to the romantic:
I was listening to conversations I had already had with people in my own life, or had debated in my head. Here they were laid out naked on the screen, stitched together in arrangements that I had failed to consider... I would have done all the same things, said all the same words.
manish on August 19, 2004 04:06 AM in Literature · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
i loved that entry, too. :)
Thank you for pointing it out: Abhi writes so beautifully.
I am a little afraid to see Before Sunset: I am a contemporary of the actors, saw the movie in the theater when it first came out, and I'm not sure I'm ready to come to terms with watching actors my age, er, aging :)
MD- what a common phenomenon- I posted a similar reaction to Abhi's blog this morning. It's not the aging so much as this recollection that the movie hit such a vein, one that may be even more vulnerable over time.
You know, your own two posts sound like a miniature Before Sunrise / Before Sunset pair :)
very well written article, very poetic, so true..even good fiction like Ayn rand's atlas shrugged can seduce u and stamp a permanant impression on ur soul .. specially when u read it when u are are 18 or 19 yrs old, u carry those impressions for a lifetime..u live in a idealistic utopian dream world and keep hoping the real world would change into a perfect paradise..well said "it stains ur soul with a color that nothing else can match and u spend a lifetime searching for a color to match that stain" or a color blends the stain so well that into itself, its no longer a stain but one perfect painting.. we all search for utopia's, lost paradise's..or try to sate our thirsts running after mirages..probably that's the beauty of being humans/dreamers..and what is life without dreams to chase..