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Me and a lorikeet (February 24, 2008)

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Jeremy's journal

A memorandum-book does not, provided it is neatly written, appear confused to an illiterate person, or to the owner who understands it thoroughly, but to any other person able to read it appears to be inextricably confused.

James Clerk Maxwell


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🦋 Cliffhanger

It is getting much easier in the last fifth of Museum of Innocence to relate to Kemal as a human being rather than a monster... Enough so that I get a little sympathetic thrill of suspense at the end of chapter 78, when he says

So I got back into bed, and happily imagining that she would soon return, I fell asleep.

All through the chapter I have been thinking Wait, why is this not the "happiest moment" of his life?...

I was speculating that possibly Kemal's repeated efforts to define "happiness" and to see how he can make it apply to his life, are a marker for the westernized nature of his worldview and of the circles he moves in -- with reference to Fazıl's statement in Snow that he must be an atheist -- i.e. westernized -- because "I don't care about anything except love and happiness."

posted evening of Sunday, November 15th, 2009
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