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A review by rosalie362819
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
favourite quotes:
"An excess of self-awareness was a disease in itself."
"If obsession isn't love, I have never loved."
"I wanted to know him as a person, and more than that, to know what he thought of me."
"The more I wrote, the less I understood."
"A few more meaningless messages and my mood would end up like a deflated balloon, with me believing that he wasn't talking to me because he was interested in me (for whatever reason), but that he was simply so lonely it was either talk to me or talk to the walls... Because back then I was exactly the same kind of person."
"Was this how the lovers of Pompeii felt when the magma covered them? I was deluged by something very hot, and the world seemed to stop turning."
"I became something not me, not anything, just another part of the world that was him."
"I've seen too many people ruined by their art or their convictions."
"I wanted to listen to him all night, for many nights on end. I wanted to fit together his fragmented pieces and complete the puzzle of him in my mind. That life that was unknown to me, the habits I wasn't aware of, even his breath-- I wanted to reconfigure them all and make them my own."
"For too long, I was caught up in the delusion that wherever I was and whatever I did, he would always be there behind me, waving."
"Wanting to see the world from his elevation, I walked on my toes and looked out through what I imagined were his eyes. My thoughts were full of things he might be interested in or what we might do together as a couple."
"I just wanted to hold him, to fold every inch of my body and soul into his heat and heartbeat."
"I came to the realization that life was merely the forward motion of going form one's first hospital room to one's last."
"I was used to choosing to see nothing... The ruined graffiti of his back filled my field of vision. I traced my fingers over each line. They felt cold. Even after I covered us with the blanket that he'd kicked off, the chill did not go away. I curled up into myself with my back to him and suddenly felt that I was owed an apology. From whom?"
"I really wanted a sincere apology from her. To hear her say, at least once in my life, that she was sorry. But that was never going to happen, was it?"
"Who was he, and what was I to him?"
"He didn't care if I was his, but I wanted him to feel that it was either me or nobody else."
"Its subtleties of feeling, brought on by that strange calm that Father and the Other Woman seemed to share, could not be simplified into concepts like despair or suffering. That feeling of pressing down on something that threatens to boil over or explode."
"A letter inhaling, a letter exhaling. This act of breathing and writing struck me as being similar to the passion that ailed me at the time. Had it really been a passion for someone? Or a passion for the person I became when I was caught up in someone? That was, in a way, a bottomless passion for me. A passion for loving Jesus, for throwing oneself wholly into the act of living. That was, perhaps, the feeling I had toward my guy at one time, a feeling of giving myself up to something, an energy I was never a minute away from; perhaps it was something close to religion. To let oneself fall into complete darkness, a kind of faith."
"... She said: Don't try too hard. We all die someday, anyway. I wanted to shout, Why don't you give yourself that advice, aren't you supposed to ask me why I did it, isn't there something you always wondered about me?"
"But is love truly beautiful? To me, love is a thing you can't stop when you're caught up in it, a brief moment you can escape from only after it turns into the most hideous thing imaginable when you distance yourself from it."
"That my life could not be summed up like the neat columns of numbers on a chart, that it could swerve in an unpredictable direction at any time. That the person I thought I knew best just because we had blood ties could actually be the most mysterious and unknown. That there were times in life when you just have to stop holding on. And that was why the only thing I could do now was to cease all thinking, to simply watch her as she smiled and attached meanings to silly things like the rising and setting of the sun. All I could do was await her death. And hope that she would die without having known."
"Why did he never make a sound when he slept? Like he was afraid of being a nuisance to others. Like he was a burden, no matter how long we had lived together. Was that my fault or his fault, or just something neither of us could do anything about?"
"Gyu-ho became a straight man, a gay man, a woman, a child, a soldier. He became anything and everything a human being could become before dying on the page, every time. And as a dead person, he became the object of my love, my reminiscences, my dreams-- always an object. In my memories, Gyu-ho is cold, perfectly frozen in time. That is how my memories of him are preserved under glass, safe and pristine, forever apart from me."
"I still sometimes think that if I just reach out, I could touch the bridge of his nose... Had he simply wanted someone to be waiting for him when he came back to the room? For someone to turn the lights on, to mess up the room a bit, to speak into the silence even in an unfamiliar language?"
"Rain still falls during the late rainy season, as do tears even when it's too late."
"Sometimes his very existence to me is the existence of love itself."
"An excess of self-awareness was a disease in itself."
"If obsession isn't love, I have never loved."
"I wanted to know him as a person, and more than that, to know what he thought of me."
"The more I wrote, the less I understood."
"A few more meaningless messages and my mood would end up like a deflated balloon, with me believing that he wasn't talking to me because he was interested in me (for whatever reason), but that he was simply so lonely it was either talk to me or talk to the walls... Because back then I was exactly the same kind of person."
"Was this how the lovers of Pompeii felt when the magma covered them? I was deluged by something very hot, and the world seemed to stop turning."
"I became something not me, not anything, just another part of the world that was him."
"I've seen too many people ruined by their art or their convictions."
"I wanted to listen to him all night, for many nights on end. I wanted to fit together his fragmented pieces and complete the puzzle of him in my mind. That life that was unknown to me, the habits I wasn't aware of, even his breath-- I wanted to reconfigure them all and make them my own."
"For too long, I was caught up in the delusion that wherever I was and whatever I did, he would always be there behind me, waving."
"Wanting to see the world from his elevation, I walked on my toes and looked out through what I imagined were his eyes. My thoughts were full of things he might be interested in or what we might do together as a couple."
"I just wanted to hold him, to fold every inch of my body and soul into his heat and heartbeat."
"I came to the realization that life was merely the forward motion of going form one's first hospital room to one's last."
"I was used to choosing to see nothing... The ruined graffiti of his back filled my field of vision. I traced my fingers over each line. They felt cold. Even after I covered us with the blanket that he'd kicked off, the chill did not go away. I curled up into myself with my back to him and suddenly felt that I was owed an apology. From whom?"
"I really wanted a sincere apology from her. To hear her say, at least once in my life, that she was sorry. But that was never going to happen, was it?"
"Who was he, and what was I to him?"
"He didn't care if I was his, but I wanted him to feel that it was either me or nobody else."
"Its subtleties of feeling, brought on by that strange calm that Father and the Other Woman seemed to share, could not be simplified into concepts like despair or suffering. That feeling of pressing down on something that threatens to boil over or explode."
"A letter inhaling, a letter exhaling. This act of breathing and writing struck me as being similar to the passion that ailed me at the time. Had it really been a passion for someone? Or a passion for the person I became when I was caught up in someone? That was, in a way, a bottomless passion for me. A passion for loving Jesus, for throwing oneself wholly into the act of living. That was, perhaps, the feeling I had toward my guy at one time, a feeling of giving myself up to something, an energy I was never a minute away from; perhaps it was something close to religion. To let oneself fall into complete darkness, a kind of faith."
"... She said: Don't try too hard. We all die someday, anyway. I wanted to shout, Why don't you give yourself that advice, aren't you supposed to ask me why I did it, isn't there something you always wondered about me?"
"But is love truly beautiful? To me, love is a thing you can't stop when you're caught up in it, a brief moment you can escape from only after it turns into the most hideous thing imaginable when you distance yourself from it."
"Why did he never make a sound when he slept? Like he was afraid of being a nuisance to others. Like he was a burden, no matter how long we had lived together. Was that my fault or his fault, or just something neither of us could do anything about?"
"I still sometimes think that if I just reach out, I could touch the bridge of his nose... Had he simply wanted someone to be waiting for him when he came back to the room? For someone to turn the lights on, to mess up the room a bit, to speak into the silence even in an unfamiliar language?"
"Rain still falls during the late rainy season, as do tears even when it's too late."
"Sometimes his very existence to me is the existence of love itself."