Les Pensées (40)

Artaud had always loved the thrill of illicit pleasures so much that he confessed his shameful thoughts, to himself, then to everyone, until he had no more secrets to expose and he could only provoke other people with outrageous fantasies, until everything had become so normal that it bored him, and he could only find some final satisfaction in extracting the confession of a remote stranger, to whom he listened with the most sincere empathy and endless patience, reminiscent of an abandoned capacity to get excited by his own little common secrets that he had lost forever.

Opening idea 1

It began before the whispers of children and before a wine glass would smash an end to everything.

It began before her footsteps led a trail through new snow, ending in a pool of emptiness and warmed earth where she had lain.

It began with a train journey from New York City.

"Remind me what we are doing here?" she had asked.

Grand Central Station: late afternoon. The rush and echo of commuters against the marble walls. Camera flashes and chandelier light, the crackle of a tannoy and the steadiness of his reply:

"running towards who we really are."

"running away." she says in her Mother's voice. He shrugs.

"if that's what you want to call it, but i don't believe that's true."

Les Pensées (39)

Artaud was reminded of Kurt Vonnegut's quote that we are who we pretend to be. Having pursued truth all his life, Artaud reflected now that he was no one.

Les Pensées (38)

A bright glare of light filled the room in the early brisk morning. Artaud felt uninspired.

The Diaries of Arnon Grunberg (14)

Arnon started walking. He walked into the dark night and the bloated circle of colored lights. He was alone, but he barely noticed that he was while he kept on walking. It could have been snowing, or it might have been drizzling, or perhaps it was a clear winter night, he didn't remember. He did remember the blackness of the evening, the coat of dimness that isolated him and embraced him in one present gesture, and the brightness of the sparkles around him that amazed him. His eyes were drawn in all directions, drops of rain stirring a puddle of mud, and never lingered at one spot for more than a second. He couldn't form any prolonged ideas but only short impulses of thoughts. This state of mind itself fascinated him. It was not his nature to be caught up in such a stream of consciousness that constantly renewed itself. Arnon was more used to his own thoughts prolonging themselves and separating him from the distancing reality that surrounded him. The relation between Arnon and the world was vaguely undefined, absent perhaps in the eyes of some, at least not in a constant form that let itself be renewed easily. In what form the relation with the outside world existed then? Arnon thought of the world as a friendly enemy, a benign poison dripping into the hollow bowl of his soul until one day it would spill over and he no longer was himself. He kept on walking, alone, into the night.

Het Uur van de Wolf, Heb je nog steeds vrienden?