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Omgsh

"But there is very little indeed to be done when we will not do that which we have to do."

"Down the chimney they would have got, but that at the heart of the fire there always lay a certain fir-cone, which looked like solid gold red-hot, and which, although it might easily get covered up with ashes, so as to be quite invisible, was continually in a glow fit to kindle all the fir-cones in the world; this it was which had kept the horrible birds—some say they have a claw at the tip of every wing-feather—...

"If she had done her work in the day, she would have slept through the terrors of the darkness, and awaked fearless; whereas now, she had in the storehouse of her heart a whole harvest of agonies, reaped from the dun fields of the night!"

"People are so ready to think themselves changed when it is only their mood that is changed! Those who are good-tempered because it is a fine day, will be ill-tempered when it rains: their selves are just the same both days; only in the one case, the fine weather has got into them, in the other the rainy."

"The wrong in her was this—that she had led such a bad life, that she did not know a good woman when she saw her; took her for one like herself, even after she had slept in her arms."

Now this being the best she could do, it was a sign she was a low creature. Think of it—to kick at kindness, and kneel from terror. But the sternness on the face of the wise woman came from the same heart and the same feeling as the kindness that had shone from it before. The only thing that could save the princess from her hatefulness, was that she should be made to mind somebody else than her own miserable Somebody

Why: "...A December birth? Well, I don’t know. Maybe December is actually pretty hot in Palestine. Sorry, I really should know more about you."

Oh.: "Mary. Dear Mary. I have to say it. I have no idea how you did it. I can’t even imagine what you were going through, having a baby with only a carpenter for a husband and a pony or something. I know the angels and the wise men showed up after that, but I’m pretty sure you would have preferred a nurse or an ob-gyn, right? Wait, did you have those back then? God, it must have been really cold, though. ..."

"“Oh, by the way, I got divorced,” then acted like she was about to hang up. Shocked, I asked her to tell me about it. . . . Typical Yukino. It’s just like her to move ahead with things without anyone even catching on. But it’s probably like that for everybody. Yukino’s more open than most, maybe. She’s a good egg."

So weird

The search for meaning: "There was nothing here dazzling enough to describe as magic. No cutting-edge technology. The spell was in the obsession, the relentless intensity. Words summoning more words, making space for a new story to come into the world. Solemnly, modestly, reverently. And inside the core a void. Ready for whatever story was going to fill it."

"No—at this factory, there wasn’t even the possibility of anything going wrong." Assumes certainty which, in how this is written, also adds to the feeling of suffocation. MC wants to experience an error, something that breaks free from the numerous sameness but is doomed to come up empty.

I cant help but think of how manufacturing accounts for deviation from norm (ie. rejected products) b/c no machine is 100% perf.

There's suffocation in how daily life is described. The argument that structural (cultural) norms create oppression with the (arguable) illusion of individualistic choice. It's rooted in materialism.

"It just kept going—rolling on and on.
Somebody save me, I thought to myself. I remembered how I always used to hope to find rejects on trips to factories. A malformed seat belt, maybe, or a book with miscut pages. That was what I wanted to see. Unexpected cracks in a giant system that seemed so unassailable."

Modern Japanese novels on workplace + loneliness in a big city (ie There’s No Easy Job, Convenience Store Woman, and Yagi’s Diary of Void) are like the new existentialist books of the 21 first century working woman. Kafka-esque, if you squint and throw in specific Japanese cultural norms.

“Whose non-existence is necessary to the conception of this place? And how uncontrollable is the rage whenever that non-existence is violated?”

Japanese lit is very much a hit or "that was weird" (eg overly metaphorical that I can't really get on board with the grounding in the world-building, or just weird) for me. This one is starting off quite interesting and amusing.