Noel’s Reviews > Diaries, 1910-1923 > Status Update
Noel
is on page 396 of 521
My parents were playing cards; I sat apart, a perfect stranger; my father asked me to take a hand, or at least to look on; I made some sort of excuse. What is the meaning of these refusals, oft repeated since my childhood? I could have availed myself of invitations to take part in social, even, to an extent, public life; everything required of me I should have done, if not well, at least in middling fashion;
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— Sep 15, 2026 12:08AM
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Noel’s Previous Updates
Noel
is on page 413 of 521
The gesture of rejection with which I was forever met did not mean: ‘I do not love you,’ but: ‘You cannot love me, much as you would like; you are unhappily in love with your love for me, but your love for me is not in love with you.’ It is consequently incorrect to say that I have known the words, ‘I love you’; I have known only the expectant stillness that should have been broken by my
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— Sep 15, 2026 12:13AM
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Noel
is on page 393 of 521
It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summons.
— Sep 12, 2026 02:41PM
Noel
is on page 393 of 521
It is astounding how I have systematically destroyed myself in the course of the years, it was like a slowly widening breach in a dam, a purposeful action. The spirit that brought it about must now be celebrating triumphs; why doesn’t it let me take part in them? But perhaps it hasn’t yet achieved its purpose and can therefore think of nothing else.
— Sep 12, 2026 02:40PM
Noel
is on page 341 of 521
Going to pieces. To go to pieces so pointlessly and unnecessarily.
— Sep 10, 2026 08:16PM
Noel
is on page 339 of 521
Completely indifferent and apathetic. A well gone dry, water at an unattainable depth and no certainty it is there. Nothing, nothing. … What is there to tie me to a past or a future? The present is a phantom state for me; I don’t sit at the table but hover round it. Nothing, nothing. Emptiness, boredom, no, not boredom, merely emptiness, meaninglessness, weakness.
— Sep 10, 2026 07:54PM
Noel
is on page 334 of 521
Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone – never.
— Sep 10, 2026 07:52PM
Noel
is on page 295 of 521
Kafka’s diaries might honestly be my favorite thing I’ve ever read. In fact, “favorite” is understating it. This is a guidebook for life. It’s impact on me so far is comparable only to the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time, the sum total of David Wojnarowicz’s writings, and Kafka’s own letters to Milena. Those three authors basically write the way I think, but especially Kafka.
— Sep 07, 2026 04:27PM
Noel
is on page 295 of 521
I am more and more unable to think, to observe, to determine the truth of things, to remember, to speak, to share an experience; I am turning to stone, this is the truth.
— Sep 06, 2026 04:19PM
Noel
is on page 292 of 521
(A lovely short sketch.)
I paced up and down my room from early morning unto twilight. The window was open, it was a warm day. The noise of the narrow street beat in uninterruptedly. By now I knew every trifle in the room from having looked at in the course of my pacing up and down. My eyes had travelled over every wall. I had pursued the pattern of the rug to its last convolution, noted every mark of age it
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— Sep 06, 2026 03:42PM
I paced up and down my room from early morning unto twilight. The window was open, it was a warm day. The noise of the narrow street beat in uninterruptedly. By now I knew every trifle in the room from having looked at in the course of my pacing up and down. My eyes had travelled over every wall. I had pursued the pattern of the rug to its last convolution, noted every mark of age it
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Sep 15, 2026 12:09AM
even card-playing would probably not have bored me overmuch – yet I refused. … A few evenings later I did actually join in, to the extent of keeping score for my mother. But it begot no intimacy, or whatever trace there was of it was smothered under weariness, boredom, and regret for the wasted time. It would always have been thus. I have seldom, very seldom crossed this borderland between loneliness and fellowship, I have even been settled there longer than in loneliness itself. What a fine bustling place was Robinson Crusoe’s island in comparison!
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Oh -- this one rang a dormant bell