[오늘의 한문장] The Sense Of An Ending (Paperback)

This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn‘t turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents were they the stuff of Literature? At best, they might aspire to the condition of onlookers and bystanders, part of a social backdrop against which real, true, important things could happen. Like what? The things Literature was all about: love, sex, moral-ity, friendship, happiness, suffering, betrayal, adultery, good and evil, heroes and villains, guilt and innocence, ambition,
power, justice, revolution, war, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, the individual against society, success and failure, murder, suicide, death, God. And barn owls. Of course.
there were other sorts of literature—theoretical, self-referential, lachrymosely autobiographical—but they were just dry wanks. Real literature was about psychological,
emotional and social truth as demonstrated by the actions and reflections of its protagonists; the novel was about character developed over time. That‘s what Phil Dixon had told us anyway. And the only person apart from Robson-whose life so far contained anything remotely novel-worthy was Adrian.

After a long analysis of Robs...

After a long analysis of Robson‘s suicide, we concluded that it could only be considered philosophical in an arithmetical sense of the term: he, being about to cause an increase of one in the human population, had decided it was his ethical duty to keep the planet‘s numbers constant. But in all other respects we judged that Robson had let us—and serious thinking down. His action had been unphilosophical, self-indulgent and inartistic: in other words, wrong. Asfor his suicide note, which according to rumour (Brown again) read ˝Sorry, Mum,˝ we felt that it had missed a powerful educative opportunity.

[오늘의 한문장] The Sense Of An Ending (Paperback)

speed itup,
others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to gomissing—until the eventual point when it really does gomissing, never to return.


I‘m not very interested in my schooldays, and don‘t feel anynostalgia for them. But school is where it all began, so I needto return briefly to a few incidents that have grown intoanecdotes, to some approximate memories which time hasdeformed into certainty. If I can‘t be sure of the actual eventsany more, I can at least be true to the impressions those factsleft. That‘s the best I can manage.

예감은 틀리지 않는다, 7년 전에 읽었는데… 기억이 ...

예감은 틀리지 않는다, 7년 전에 읽었는데… 기억이 깜깜해서 다시 읽어

We live in time—it holds us and moulds us—but I‘ve never felt I understood it very well. And I‘m not referring to the-ories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, every-day time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time‘s malleability.

[오늘의 한문장] 예감은 틀리지 않는다 (어나더커버 특별판)

우리는 시간 속에 산다. 시간은 우리를 붙들어, 우리에게 형태를 부여한다. 그러나 시간을 정말로 잘 안다고 느꼈던 적은단 한 번도 없다. 지금 나는 시간이 구부러지고 접힌다거나, 평행우주 같은 다른 형태로 어딘가에 존재할지도 모른다는 이론적인 얘길 하는 게 아니다. 그럴 리가, 나는 일상적인, 매일매일의, 우리가 탁상시계와 손목시계를 보며 째깍째깍 찰칵찰칵규칙적으로 흘러감을 확인하는 시간을 말하는 것이다. 이 세상에 초침만큼 이치를 벗어나지 않는 게 또 있을까. 하지만 굳이 시간의 유연성을 깨닫고 싶다면, 약간의 여흥이나 고통만으로 충분하다. 시간에 박차를 가하는 감정이 있고, 한편으로그것을 더디게 하는 감정이 있다. 그리고 가끔, 시간은 사라져버린 것처럼 느껴지기도 한다. 그것이 정말로 사라져 다시는돌아오지 않는 마지막 순간까지도, 내 학창시절에 대해선 그다지 관심이 없기 때문에 결코 그때가 그립다거나 하는 일은 없다.