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A review by jinjer
Mourning Diary by Roland Barthes
5.0
Why this book - Joyce Carol Oates mentioned it in an interview.
I loved this book. A few quotes:
The desires I had before her death (while she was sick) can no longer be fulfilled, for that would mean it is her death that allows me to fulfill them.
Disappointment of various places and trips. Not really comfortable anywhere. Very soon, this cry: I want to go back! (but where? since she is no longer anywhere, who was once where I could go back). I am seeking my place.
Occasionally (for instance, yesterday, in the courtyard of the Bibliotheque Nationale), how to express that fleeting thought that maman is never again to be here; a sort of black wing (of the definitive) passes over me and chokes my breathing; a pain so acute that it seems as if, in order to survive, I must immediately drift toward something else.
We don't forget,
but something vacant settles in us.
I loved this book. A few quotes:
The desires I had before her death (while she was sick) can no longer be fulfilled, for that would mean it is her death that allows me to fulfill them.
Disappointment of various places and trips. Not really comfortable anywhere. Very soon, this cry: I want to go back! (but where? since she is no longer anywhere, who was once where I could go back). I am seeking my place.
Occasionally (for instance, yesterday, in the courtyard of the Bibliotheque Nationale), how to express that fleeting thought that maman is never again to be here; a sort of black wing (of the definitive) passes over me and chokes my breathing; a pain so acute that it seems as if, in order to survive, I must immediately drift toward something else.
We don't forget,
but something vacant settles in us.