Agnes’s concept of death has,...

Agnes’s concept of death has, for a long time, taken the form of a single room, lit from within, perhaps in the middle of an expanse of moorland. The living inhabit the room; the dead mill about outside it, pressing their palms and faces and fingertips to the window, desperate to get back, to reach their people. Some inside the room can hear and see those outside; some can speak through the walls; most cannot. - P201

She fears her foresight; she does. She remembers with ice-cold clarity the image she had of two figures at the foot of the bed where she will meet her end. She now knows that it’s possible, more than possible, that one of her children will die, because children do, all the time. But she will not have it. She will not. She will fill this child, these children, with life. She will place herself between them and the door leading out, and she will stand there, teeth bared, blocking the way. She will defend her three babes against all that lies beyond this world. She will not rest, not sleep, until she knows they are safe. She will push back, fight against, undo the foresight she has always had, about having two children. She will. She knows she can. - P201

Anyone, Eliza is thinking, who describes dying as ‘slipping away’ or ‘peaceful’ has never witnessed it happen. Death is violent, death is a struggle. The body clings to life, as ivy to a wall, and will not easily let go, will not surrender its grip without a fight. - P210

Hamnet, in his place of snow and ice, is lowering himself down to the ground, allowing his knees to fold under him. He is placing first one palm, then the other, on to the crisp, crystalline skin of snow, and how welcoming it feels, how right. It is not too cold, not too hard. He lies down; he presses his cheek to the softness of the snow. The whiteness of it is glaring, jarring to his eyes, so he closes them, just for a moment, just enough, so he may rest and gather his strength. He is not going to sleep, he is not. He will carry on. But he needs to rest, for a moment. He opens his eyes, to reassure himself the world is still there, and then lets them close. Just for now. - P214

And there, by the fire, held in the arms of his mother, in the room in which he learnt to crawl, to eat, to walk, to speak, Hamnet takes his last breath. He draws it in, he lets it out. Then there is silence, stillness. Nothing more. - P214

For the first time, the tears come for Agnes. They fill her eyes without warning, blur her vision, pouring forth to run down her face, her neck, soaking her apron, running between her clothes and her skin. They seem to come not just from her eyes but from every pore of her body. Her whole being longs for, grieves for her son, her daughters, her absent husband, for all of them, when she says, ‘No, my love, he will never come again.’ - P227

I am dead:
Thou livest; . . .
draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story

Hamlet, Act V, scene ii - P216

She, who has always known, al...

She, who has always known, always sensed what will happen before it happens, who has moved serenely through a world utterly transparent, has been wrongfooted, caught off guard. How can this be? - P189

She has to get to the forest, she must. If she is made to stay here, she doesn’t know what will happen. It won’t bode well. Something will go wrong. She is so certain of this fact, while unable to explain why. ‘I mean, yes. To . . .’ - P191

How can she make them understand the dread that has been filling her, ever since she heard the words of that letter? - P191

All Agnes wants is the green of a forest. She craves the dappled, animate pattern of light on ground, the merciful shade of a leaf-canopy, the not-quite-quiet, the repeating seclusion of trunks, disappearing into the distance. - P192

She is able to form the realisation, not in words, perhaps, but in a sensation, that he sounded not different in that letter but returned. - P194

그녀는 9월을, 가장 좋은 달을 택해 움직였다. 몬순...

그녀는 9월을, 가장 좋은 달을 택해 움직였다. 몬순이 물러간 케랄라는 산과 바다 사이에서 에메랄드 띠처럼 빛나고 있었다. 비행기가 착륙을 위해 비스듬히 날면서 땅이 일어나 우리를 맞이했을 때, 나는 지형이 이토록 뚜렷하고 물리적인 고통을 줄 수 있다는 사실을 믿을 수가 없었다

-알라딘 eBook <어머니 내게 오시네> (아룬다티 로이 지음, 민승남 옮김) 중에서 - P14

그날 나는 우리들 대부분이 기억과 상상이 뒤섞인 살아 숨쉬는 수프 같은 존재임을, 그리고 우리가 기억인지 상상인지 판단할 수 있는 최고의 판관은 아니라는 것을 깨달았다.

-알라딘 eBook <어머니 내게 오시네> (아룬다티 로이 지음, 민승남 옮김) 중에서 - P21

소설은 어디서 오는 걸까? 우리의 과거, 현재, 독서, 상상력—그렇다. 하지만 어쩌면 미래에 대한 예감에서 오는 것이기도 하지 않을까?

-알라딘 eBook <어머니 내게 오시네> (아룬다티 로이 지음, 민승남 옮김) 중에서 - P22

He feels again the sensation ...

He feels again the sensation he has had all his life: that she is the other side to him, that they fit together, him and her, like two halves of a walnut. That without her he is incomplete, lost. - P167

How can he live without her? He cannot. It is like asking the heart to live without the lungs, like tearing the moon out of the sky and asking the stars to do its work, like expecting the barley to grow without rain. - P167

‘I’ll come with you. We’ll go together.’ - P168

Beautiful fingers, Agnes has, Mary is pained to notice. Tapering, white, slender. Agnes is, Mary is forced to admit, a striking woman. But it is an unsettling, wrong sort of beauty: the dark hair is ill-matched with the golden-green eyes, the skin whiter than milk, the teeth evenly spaced but pointed, like a fox’s. Mary finds she cannot look at her daughter-in-law for long, she cannot hold her gaze. This creature, this woman, this elf, this sorceress, this forest sprite – because she is that, everyone says so, Mary knows it to be true – bewitched and ensnared her boy, lured him into a union. This, Mary can never forgive. - P174

And now the moment has arrived. Agnes conjugates it: he is going, he will be gone, he will go. She has put these circumstances together; she has set it in motion, as if she were the puppeteer, hidden behind a screen, gently pulling on the strings of her wooden people, easing and guiding them on where to go. She asked Bartholomew to speak to John, then waited for John to speak to her husband. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t got Bartholomew to plant the idea in John’s head. She has created this moment – no one else – and yet, now it is happening, she finds that it is entirely at odds with what she desires. - P175

It has come as a surprise to her that she has been unable to picture or divine the child she is carrying: girl or boy, she cannot tell. She is receiving no definite signs. She dropped a knife from the table the other day and it fell pointing towards the fire. A girl, then, she thought. But later the same day she found herself spooning the pap of an apple, sharp, pleasingly crisp, into her mouth and she thought: A boy. It is altogether confusing. Her hair is dry and crackles when she brushes it, which means a girl, but her skin is soft, her nails strong, which means a boy. A male peewit flew into her path the other day but then a female pheasant came squawking out of the bushes. - P178

She walks back, more slowly, the way she came. How odd it feels, to move along the same streets, the route in reverse, like inking over old words, her feet the quill, going back over work, rewriting, erasing. Partings are strange. It seems so simple: one minute ago, four, five, he was here, at her side; now, he is gone. She was with him; she is alone. She feels exposed, chill, peeled like an onion. - P180

[오늘의 한문장] Hamnet (Movie Tie-In Edition)

What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or brigand. The trick is never to let down your guard. Never think you are safe. Never take for granted that your children’s hearts beat, that they sup milk, that they draw breath, that they walk and speak and smile and argue and play. Never for a moment forget they may be gone, snatched from you, in the blink of an eye, borne away from you like thistledown. - P165