The Deformers Project - Anna Burns

After generation upon generation, fathers upon forefathers, mothers upon foremothers, centuries and millennia of being one colour officially and three colours unofficially, a colourful sky, just like that, could not be allowed to be.

Anna Burns, Milkman

Quotable – Anna Burns

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No one has ever come across a cat apologising and if a cat did, it would patently be obvious it was not being sincere.

Anna Burns, Milkman

「幸せになれるとかなれないとか、そういう話じゃないだろ」

With da it was never ‘Must get down on knees and give thanks that others in the world are suffering far worse than me’ …everybody knew it didn’t work like that. Neither in this workaday world, in this little human-being world, did we spend time counting blessings and eschewing the relative in favour of the eternal. That relative, that temporal plane - where sensitivities vary, where no one has the same personal history even if they have the same communal history, where something that is a trigger for one person passes off unnoticed by another person - definitely was the plane where the raw living of life and the imperfect mental response to that living of life took place. Even ma and her type - for all their intolerance of depressives and of especially getting down on knees in the face of tragedies to offer thanks that some other poor buggers had been selected by God to suffer such dreadful fates instead of them - even they didn’t rest easy. 

— Milkman, Anna Burns

Recent Reading: Maggie O'Farrell - This Must Be The Place and Instructions For A heatwave

I keep hearing good things about Maggie O’Farrell, the Irishwoman living in my native Edinburgh, and so I’d picked both of the above up in a charity shop some time ago, but left them languishing in my ‘to do’ pile. A conversation with my friend Victoria prompted me to start reading, and I’m glad that I did. Both books share a strong sense of style. O’Farrell densely plots her novels so that…

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'The great sign of love and friendship between us,' pronounced the corpse, 'is that I don't point my gun at you and you don't point your gun at me and the designated site of the non-pointing of guns will be the cemetery, marked by a famous unfilled-in grave. This grave with nobody in it will be the symbol of the mutual care and respect in which we hold each other and, as long as we keep to our own end of the bargain, it will never have to be filled in with any of your, or my, dead.' [...] 'You mean implying distrust is all there is?' asked the media. '--and treachery is all there is?' asked the police. '--and hyper-defence is all there is?' '--and threatened response is all there is?' '--and that that is what love is?' '--so we'd better get used to it?' '--by laying down rules?' '--and treaties?' '--and clauses within treaties?' '--which must be obeyed?' '--in order for us to love each other?' '--otherwise we'll kill each other?' 'Exactly,' said the wizards.

Anna Burns, Mostly Hero

Mostly Hero, by Anna Burns

Quotable – Anna Burns

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Booker Prize geht an Paul Lynch

Der irische Schriftsteller gewinnt mit seinem Roman »A Prophet Song« den wichtigsten britischen Buchpreis. Paul Lynch folgt auf Shehan Karunatilaka, dessen Roman »Die sieben Monde des Maali Almeida« morgen in der deutschen Übersetzung erscheint. Continue reading Untitled

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