To Own A Certain Book - And

When You Are In Your Twenties, Even If You're Confused And Uncertain About Your Aims And Purposes, You Have A Strong Sense Of What Life Itself Is, And Of What You In Life Are, And Might Become. Later.. Later There Is More Uncertainty, More Overlapping, More Backtracking, More False Memories. Back Then, You Can Remember Your Short Life In Its Entirety. Later, The Memory Becomes A Thing Of Shreds And Patches.

He Always Thought That Touie's Long Illness Would Somehow Prepare Him For Her Death. He Always Imagined That Grief Anf Guilt, If They Followed, Would Be More Clear-edged, More Defined, More Finite. Instead They Seem Like Weather, Like Clouds Constantly Re-forming Into New Shapes, Blown By Nameless, Unidentifiable Winds.

Had My Life Increased, Or Merely Added To Itself? There Had Been Addition And Subtraction In My Life, But How Much Multiplication?

And That's A Life, Isn't It? Some Achievements And Some Disappointments. It's Been Interesting To Me, Though I Wouldn't Complain Or Be Amazed If Others Found It Less So. Maybe, In A Way, Adrian Knew What He Was Doing. Not That I Would Have Missed My Own Life For Anything, You Understand. [pp.60-61]

In My Terms, I Settled For The Realities Of Life, And Submitted To Its Necessities: If This, Then That, And So The Years Passed. In Adrian's Terms, I Gave Up On Life, Gave Up On Examining It, Took It As It Came. And So, For The First Time, I Began To Feel A More General Remorse - A Feeling Somewhere Between Self-pity And Self-hatred - About My Whole Life. All Of It. I Had Lost The Friends Of My Youth. I Had Lost The Love Of My Wife. I Had Abandoned The Ambitions I Had Entertained. I Had Wanted Life Not To Bother Me Too Much, And Had Succeeded - And How Pitiful That Was.