Thursday, January 12, 2006

Like a sun that just wouldn't set out on the horizon.

My third son is handsome too, but not in a way that I appreciate. He has the good looks of a singer: the curving lips; the dreaming eye; the kind of head that asks for drapery behind it to make it effective; the too deeply arched chest; hands that are quick to fly up and much too quick to fall limp; legs that move delicately because they cannot support a weight. And besides: the tone of his voice is not round and full; it takes you in for a moment; the connoisseur pricks up his ears; but almost at once its breath give out.—Although, in general, everything tempts me to bring this son of mine into the limelight, I prefer to keep him in the background; he himself is not insistent, yet not because he is aware of his shortcomings but out of innocence. Moreover, he does not feel at home in our age; as if he admitted belonging to our family, yet knew that he belonged also to another which he has lost forever, he is often melancholy and nothing can cheer him.

—Franz Kafka, “Eleven Sons” [translated by Willa and Edwin Muir]

1 Comments:

Blogger Lostinspace said...

hi there
i love to read quotations from works of great writers. what i would give to hear your voice and to see if it is round and full.

11:57 AM  

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