[오늘의 한문장] 채식주의자

아내가 채식을 시작하기 전까지 나는 그녀가 특별한 사람이라고 생각한 적이 없었다. 솔직히 말하자면, 아내를 처음 만났을 때 끌리지도 않았다. 크지도 작지도 않은 키, 길지도 짧지도 않은 단발머리, 각질이 일어난 노르스름한 피부, 외꺼풀 눈에 약간 튀어나온 광대뼈, 개성있어 보이는 것을 두려워하는듯한 무채색의 옷차림. 가장 단순한 디자인의 검은 구두를 신고 그녀는 내가 기다리는 테이블로 다가왔다. 빠르지도, 느리지도, 힘있지도, 가냘프지도 않은 걸음걸이로. - P9

[오늘의 한문장] 팔레스타인 100년 전쟁

이와 같이 원주민을 희생시키는 급진적인 사회공학은 모든 식민주의 정착민 운동이 구사하는 방법이다. 팔레스타인에서는 아랍인이 압도적으로 많은 나라의 대부분을 유대인이 지배하는 국가로 바꾸기 위해 이런 사회공학이 선결 조건이었다. 내가 이 책에서 주장하겠지만, 팔레스타인의 현대사는 이런 관점에서 볼 때 가장 잘 이해할 수 있다. 다양한 세력이 원주민의 의지를 짓밟고 다른 민족에게 그들의 고국을 내주도록 강요하기 위해 식민주의 전쟁을 벌인 것이다. - P25

[오늘의 한문장] The Love of a Good Woman: Stories (Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)

But if she concentrated on the motion of the boat, a slight and secretive motion, she could feel as if everything for a long way around had gone quiet. - P78

They made a horrible smell an...

They made a horrible smell and the smell made her sick. That was the whole beginning of her being sick. That and the paint. - P61

That started her throwing up, leaning over and breathing in that paint. And the pains in her back—that was the start of them, too. - P61

"Oh, Mr. Willens, now, how much do I owe you for today?" - P61

And that was the signal for him to get her down and thump her like an old billy goat. - P62

Right on the bare floor to knock her up and down and try to bash her into pieces. Dingey on him like a blowtorch. - P62

They said his head got bunged up knocking against the steering wheel. They said he was alive when he went in the water. What a laugh. - P62

The smell rising from the body seemed to be changing, losing its ammoniac sharpness. Changing into the common odor of death. - P65

She had the body straightened out and cleaned and the bed put to rights before the doctor came. - P66

"July 10. Patient Mrs. Rupert (Jeanette) Quinn died today approx. 5 p.m. Heart failure due to uremia. (Glomerulonephritis.)" - P67

It was bewilderment that stopped him, not hostility. - P69

"All right," said Rupert, with the careful lack of surprise that country people will show, regarding the frivolity—the rudeness, even—of visitors. - P71

You cannot live in the world with such a burden. You will not be able to stand your life. - P72

She does not think anyone would get a death sentence for this sort of murder, which was in a way accidental, and was surely a crime of passion, but the shadow is there, to sober her when she feels that these pictures of devotion, of a bond that is like love but beyond love, are becoming indecent. - P73

"Lies" is the word that Enid can hear now, out of all the words that Mrs. Quinn said in that room. Lies. I bet it’s all lies. - P73

COULD a person make up something so detailed and diabolical? The answer is yes. - P73

Lies of that nature could be waiting around in the corners of a person’s mind, hanging like bats in the corners, waiting to take advantage of any kind of darkness. - P74

The biscuit-colored cone with its mound of vanilla ice cream squashed against the woman’s chest and the wrong end sticking into her father’s mouth. - P75

Through her silence, her collaboration in a silence, what benefits could bloom. For others, and for herself. - P75

She woke up unrepentant, swea...

She woke up unrepentant, sweaty and exhausted, and lay like a carcass until her own self, her shame and disbelief, came pouring back into her. The sweat went cold on her skin. She lay there shivering in the warm night, with disgust and humiliation. She did not dare go back to sleep. She got used to the dark and the long rectangles of the net-curtained windows filled with a faint light. And the sick woman’s breath grating and scolding and then almost disappearing. - P51

It was understandable that things should have gone downhill in the last few months, but it looked as if there had been no care, no organization here, ever. - P52

ENID made eggnogs, not flavoring them even with vanilla, and fed them to Mrs. Quinn from a spoon. She fed her a little of the rich liquid at a time, and Mrs. Quinn was able to hold down what was given to her in small amounts. If she could not do that, Enid spooned out flat, lukewarm ginger ale. - P53

Not the recriminations or (if it was possible) the endearments, or perhaps even weeping, that she had been half expecting, but a laugh. - P56

"People tell me lots of things," said Enid. "Sure. Lies," Mrs. Quinn said. "I bet it’s all lies. You know Mr. Willens was right here in this room?" - P56

He had grabbed her leg to keep his balance and her skirt got scrunched up and her leg showed bare, but that was all there was to it and she couldn’t do a thing about it, she had to concentrate on keeping still. - P57

Rupert banged his head up and down on the floor, Rupert banged the life out of him, and she jumped up so fast the chair went over and Mr. Willens’s box where he kept his eye things got knocked over and all the things flew out of it. - P57

Rupert kept banging his big flat hands. She said, Rupert, we got to bury him somewhere. - P58

Like grabbing her leg up under her skirt when he had the thing to her eye and she couldn’t stop him and Rupert had to come sneaking in and get the wrong idea. - P59

Like he just made a mistake. He did. Mr. Willens certainly did make a mistake. - P59

If he hadn’t been so strong they wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place. - P59

If you could call that kissing, all that pushing up against her with the box still in one hand and the other grabbing on, and sucking away at her with his dribbly old mouth. Sucking and chewing away at her lips and her tongue and pushing himself up at her and the corner of the box sticking into her and digging her behind. She was so surprised and he got such a hold she didn’t know how to get out of it. Pushing and sucking and dribbling and digging into her and hurting her all at the same time. He was a dirty old brute. - P60