sonechka > Recent Status Updates

so that I could have, in my hours of despair, some proof that his life had not been in vain, that there are still people on earth who record and value every life, every suffering, every human existence

and this is what I consider the compilers’ central message — nothing in the history of mankind is ever repeated, things that at first glance seem the same are scarcely even similar; each individual is a star unto himself, everything happens always and never, all things repeat themselves endlessly and unrepeatably… this is why every human being is sacred

auschwitz, i said to my wife, manifests itself to me in the image of a father; yes, the words father and auschwitz elicit the same echo within me, i said to my wife. and if the assertion that god is a glorified father figure holds any truth, then god manifested himself to me in the image of auschwitz

under certain circumstances, at a certain temperature, metaphorically speaking, words lose their substance, their content, their meaning, they simply deliquesce, so that in this vaporous state deeds alone, naked deeds, show any tendency to solidity, it is deeds alone that we can take in our hands, so to speak, and examine like a mute lump of mineral, like a crystal

our true situation, what it is you are serving...is neither necessary nor unnecessary but simply a matter of decisions...neither satanic nor unfathomably and spellbindingly intricate, nor something that majestically sweeps us up with it, no, it is just vulgar, mean, murderous, stupid, hypocritical, and even at the moments of its greatest achievements at best merely well organized

the question...[of] my existence viewed as the potentiality of your being...was altered, once and for all, in the following manner: your non-existence viewed as the necessary and radical liquidation of my own existence

silence is for prayer; it is itself like a prayer

the signal was given, the barriers were down. as has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief

the natural conclusion of all these internal conflicts was the thought of death which always lurks on the frontiers of every dream of happiness. to die, thought zorka, to slip from the kapia into the river as if by chance...to die, she thought...before going to sleep and on recovering consciousness in the morning, [and in] the most lively conversations...but one does not die, but lives with that insupportable thought

and when everything is withered, broken, soiled, humiliated, disintegrated and destroyed about you, then you will remain alone in the wilderness you have yourself created, face to face with your vanity and you will have nothing to offer it. then you will devour yourself, but that will not help you, for your vanity accustomed to richer food will despise and reject you.

you submit everything to your vanity but you are yourself the first of its slaves and its greatest martyr. it may well be that you will have still greater glory and success...but you will find no satisfaction in any one thing, for your vanity will whip you onwards, for it swallows everything, even the greatest successes and then forgets them immediately, but the slightest failure or insult it will remember forever.

i know your very soul and i know that you are a monster of vanity.

someone else's sorrow cannot move you, how much less hurt you; not even your own sorrow unless it flatters your vanity. you desire nothing and you find joy in nothing.

instead of conscience it is only your own wounded vanity that can sting you, for it alone, always and in everything, speaks with your mouth and dictates your actions.

they went out into the world, chose more or less for themselves...the subject of their studies, the nature of their entertainments and the circle of their friends...all that other[s]...[had] attained in the course of generations, through centuries of effort, at the cost of lives, of renunciations and of sacrifices greater and dearer than life, now lay before them as a chance inheritance and a dangerous gift of fate.

whenever a government feels the need of promising peace and prosperity to its citizens by means of a proclamation, it is time to be on guard and expect the opposite

there, on the other side; let those ask about his sins who will ask all the rest of us about ours

now go to the devil who sent you to me 🔥

“gorbachev sucked because he wasn’t russian enough and he wasn’t russian enough because he actually loved his wife” nobel prize was not enough for having to write this down

sonechka fan returning to her roots

off to a really positive start, national suicide day is my birthday

what to do if author is funny and well read but you can’t stand the narrator nor her love interest

wait i meant percent not pages. and yes this is the idiot like THE idiot

looked author up because depiction of harvard/elite ivy league experience was too accurate.. not only did she go to harvard but 2/3 of her books are named after dostoyevsky books, immediate 5 stars from me

« trying to imagine those souls being thus eulogized in the very heart of the city streets, she realized that her country had never once done this properly » already 6 years ago mother clocked it and it’s still true 😍🇰🇷

psalms done. also i realized i put the wrong edition(( im reading nrsv in fact

reading this feels like walking through the steppe during a frost, just so bleak

i don't understand how they got to "voices from chernobyl - oral history of a nuclear disaster" from the actual title "chernobyl prayer - chronicle of the future" which is much more beautiful

probably never in my life have i encountered a narrator so despicable

cried the entire way through so far but i was also laughing, like the girls, what else can you do when sergeant major is telling his women soldiers to even up their chests and shouting as to what they have in their shirt pockets… who’s going to tell him?