hana sof > Recent Status Updates

""It can't be easy" — he taps his finger lightly against the edge of the desk-"this thing you're always doing."
This thing I —what does he mean? He's not referring to... He doesn't know about the APE. About the different Elsies.
"I'm not sure what you're talking about."
He nods affably, like I said exactly what he expected me to, and disappointed him in the process."

The Elsies got me.

"His book argues for an art that moves beyond articulate ideas and does not rely on references to nature for its content. It urged artists to create work based solely on the sensation and perception of colour and form. It also stipulated, however, that the artist's vision must be based on an 'inner necessity' (a term that Kandinsky uses more or less interchangeably with 'inner truth')."

Why abstract is... abstract.

For some reason, I knew that Kandisky would have loved Monet. And it was Monet's Haystacks out of all his works too.

""Remember, love," I laugh, "it's a woman who does the choosing. You said so yourself."
"And I'm a fool for ever mentioning it to you.""

Hated myself for having this book on pause. Though frankly it was really out of my control. Now that I am back, I love this two together. Kicking my feet.

Oh, where am I going with this? Someone took my hand (probably Elena Cerullo) and pulled me in and now I have no idea where we are going.

Frankly reading for the vibe that it is; like walking aimlessly and idling my thoughts on how the winds make me feel and how the trees shed its leaves. I don't know what has been happening the whole time but for some reason, I stayed on.

"The vulnerable are being cordoned off and silenced. The vociferous are being incarcerated. God help us to get our country back."

It's a no wonder that this book was banned in Indian-administered / contested Jammu and Kashmir.

"I could see very well what she meant, for unmarried women with no ties could very well become unwanted. I should feel it even more than Winifred, for who was there really to grieve for me when I was gone? Dora, the Malorys, one or two people in my old village might be sorry, but I was not really first in anybody's life. I could so very easily be replaced...."

For a moment, I thought I was no longer a mood reader.

I have a feeling this will be a historical fiction I'll love. Just from the way it's written so far. There's an air of mystery in this book.

Perhaps I could have sped through this book but boy is it heavy. On hindsight, I should have kept this for the more depressing december. Between this and Isola, I can barely breathe.

"Perhaps the only good thing about pain, I think, is that its physical swaddling hides many metaphysical abysses."

"Then she laughed and I wondered if this-finding someone you can laugh with when everything hurts— was the stuff happily ever afters were made of."

Suddenly needing some romance in life and the sweetest sentence just slap me in the face. I mean, sure.

“How frail every living thing. Roses shatter; winged insects live a single day. She said, Do not depend on anything but providence, and she told us parables of those I called the deadly virtues—patience, humility, and diligence.”

I'm scared.

I would eat this book up as a teen (having just realised that it is indeed YA). And Liy was right in advicing me on an audiobook for this.

"Nothing is so delicate or so finely hinged as the wings of the green moth
against the lantern
against its heat
against the beak of the crow in the early morning.
Yet the moth has trim, and feistiness, and not a drop
of self-pity.
Not in this world."

{Final Note}

"In any case civilisation has made mankind if not more blood-thirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely blood-thirsty... Now we do think bloodshed abominable and yet we engage in this abomination, and with more energy than ever?"

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
(trans. Constance Garnett)

ENOUGH SAID. Insanely impactful first chapter.

"And in vain does the dreamer rake through his old dreams, ..., in order to fan it into flames, and with this rekindled fire warm his heart, which has grown cold, and resurrect in himself once again everything that he had held dear, that had touched his soul, that had made his blood boil, that had brought tears to his eyes and had so splendidly deceived him!"

As a dreamer, I mourn through these words.

Van Gogh fascinates me; both him and his art.

It is getting boring for me. Like it was good for a mere two seconds.

The inner thoughts of the characters (4 bestfriends who called themselves Little Women) are just so funny. Admittedly, they all seem so similar and I could make out who they are only by their circumstances.

One thing about this man is, he is a genius and fairly lucky in life. His financial choices were questionable but despite that, he is still a prolific artist. I gasp every time I look upon his art.

I'm on edge just thinking that something will hurt me at any moment. I'm just glad that at the very least Sunja knows her worth and has got brains.

"Yes, I understood, God's truth, that on the battlefield they wanted only fleeting madness. Madmen of rage, madmen of pain, furious mad-men, but temporary ones. No continuous madmen. As soon as the fighting ends, we're to file away our rage, our pain, and our fury. Pain is tolerated, we can bring our pain home on the condition that we keep it to ourselves."

The surface textures you can witness on his paintings are insane. That was all I could think of after seeing An Artist in His Studio (c. 1629).

I hate this Richard guy. Do not convince me otherwise.