“So if you found out that these were the last moments of your life, is there anything that you would do differently?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“You don’t regret certain things that you’ve done? Things that have happened?”
“Of course. But that’s normal, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps. So you wouldn’t change anything?”
“No. Would you?”
“I hadn’t thought about it. I just assumed that most people would want to change something, given the chance.”
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know. Mistakes. Things that they look back on and wish they could have done differently.”
“Don’t be silly. That’s not the point of it at all. ‘Life is a sum of all your choices’.”
“Life is what?”
“Life is a sum of all your choices.”
“That’s what you think?”
“No, it’s what someone else thought. I’m just quoting.”
“Why quote that?”
“Because I like it.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s what I think.”
“And do you think it’s true?”
“Does everything you say have to be a question? But is it not, really?”
“Is it what?”
“Is life? Are we only the things that we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“So you’ll ask questions, but not answer them.”
“Yes. Always. Shall we go?”
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Albert Camus, Conversation, Life Is A Sum Of All Your Choices, Overheard
Gracious.
Usually, when conversation turns to Top 5 lists and naming favourite things, I am the worst person to ask. Asking me to name my favourite anything is to open a floodgate of indecision, and I simply can’t do it. But when the Scottish Book Trust asked visitors to its website to name the book that changed their life, it was a different matter – for asking about a book that changed your life is not the same as asking you to name your favourite. And I knew the answer immediately: ‘Slaughterhouse – 5′ by Kurt Vonnegut.
Today I’m delighted to have discovered Gina Loughrey’s blog entry where she chooses her highlights of the personal stories submitted to the Scottish Book Trust, and to have found my own among them:
http://thebookthatchangedmylife.blogspot.com/2009/10/highlights-of-personal-stories.html
Her assertion that “Slaughterhouse-5 is a marmite sort of book” is nothing short of delightful for two reasons: firstly, because I agree with her, and secondly, because I love Marmite.
Through finding Gina’s blog, I’ve been reminded again of the joys of thinking about the books that I adore. How wonderful it is that we encounter books that engage us, move us, and change us: that black marks on paper can summon worlds and feelings that glow with life.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Gina Loughrey, Kurt Vonnegut, Scottish Book Trust, Slaughterhouse - 5, The Book That Changed My Life
