Present Imperfect

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

“‘Why does that obstinate little voice in our heads torment us so?’ he said, looking round the table. ‘Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls — which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn’t it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world, that no one and no thing hurts along with one’s burned tongues and skinned knees, that one’s aches and pains are all one’s own. Even more terrible, as we grow older, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us. Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that’s why we’re so anxious to lose them, don’t you think?’” Read more...

The Devil You Know by Mike Carey

“‘I stick with Blake,’ I said, ‘and I draw a line. Between what’s proved and what’s just jerking off — premature reification. If I see my Aunt Emily get decapitated in a freak piano-tuning accident, and then a bodiless shape that looks just like Auntie Em comes walking through my bedroom wall at three in the morning with its head tucked underneath its arm, I don’t just jump for the nearest conclusion — which is that whatever is on the label has to be in the box.’” Read more...

God is Dead by Ron Currie, Jr.

“Correct. The answer is, I don’t have an answer. I can offer no comfort and little insight. I am not your God. Or if I am, I’m no God you can seek out for deliverance or explanation. I’m the kind of God who would eat you without compunction if I were hungry. You’re as naked and alone in this world as you were before finding me. And so now the question becomes: Can you abide by this knowledge? Or will it destroy you, empty you out, make you a husk among husks?” Read more...

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

“Most people desperately desire to believe that they are part of a great mystery, that Creation is a work of grace and glory, not merely the result of random forces colliding. Yet each time that they are given but one reason to doubt, a worm in the apple of the heart makes them turn away from a thousand proofs of the miraculous, whereupon they have a drunkard’s thirst for cynicism, and they feed upon despair as a starving man upon a loaf of bread.” Read more...

Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel

“Along with the morningtime coolness there was also something new in the air: this slight kind of back-to-school tightness. The sunlight seemed faintly to smell of sharpened pencils, a sensation that comported very nicely with the feeling of renewed education you get from being psychoanalyzed. And along with the back-to-school flavor there was a definite edge of anticipation in the air as well. Because going to school year after year — it really schools you, and so at every onset of fall I’d always feel a certain seasonal imminence of big games and difficult exams, new crushes, homeroom disasters. At the beginning of every school year and now into adult life I’d walk toward class or work in the morning and think Something big is going to happen this year. At some point during these nine months that will seem longer than a year, something big is definitely going to take place. The statistical near certainty, combined with the utter vagueness, sent the same chill through me that was already in the air.” Read more...

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

“Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort. ‘Synchronize watches at oh six hundred,’ says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled liuetenants finds a respite from fear in the act of bringing two tiny pointers into jeweled alignment while tons of heavy artillery go fluttering overhead: the prosaic, civilian-looking dial of the watch has restored, however briefly, an illusion of personal control. Good, it counsels, looking tidily up from the hairs and veins of each terribly vulnerable wrist; fine: so far, everything's happening right on time.” Read more...