Eun Kim’s Reviews > Unbearable Splendor > Status Update

“I am known to be ungrateful. I am points that will eventually meet in space. I am singular but there are more of me.”

“I’ve seen what happens when women take up space.”

“Honey, can you pick up some eggs on the way home? / Her children are 40, 30, 20, 10, 5, 1 / After she dies, her eggs can still be used. A body so quiet”

“At last. Light all around us, my body a room of lamps, every wick lit as though it were the world’s last birthday. Time is now inside me, transfer and possession, never holding anything back, indifferent to my illegitimacy, disinterested in my grief, pieced with all of my joy.”

“Third Sphere (Venus: The Lovers)
In my saddlebag I carried hearts that I had found among the crowds aboveground. I carved my name on their surprisingly tough surfaces as though they were picnic tables—a pastoral banquet waiting for me.”

“My dream was to reach paradise, wherever it was.”

“First Sphere (The Moon: The Inconstant)
When I was a child I had a rocking horse, a horse on thick springs, its mane ever tousled in the exact same way, day after year. I would ride it into a hole in the ground that opened just for me, just for my horse and me. The passage of time below was inconstant, while time above rocked back and forth on its unseen springs.”

“8. Every woman is a source of terror. She is sublime, she gives chase like the white whale and will destroy your ship and bring you down with her, tethered by a sewing needle. You break the surface of the water and become something else.”

“5. You would like to devour permanence and dissolve it in your many stomachs. You would like to replace your skin when you grow weary of its memories, everything that seeps in it and never passes through, never evaporates.
6. This woman is a disappointment. Can she be exchanged, can she be returned, can she be reborn. Douse it again.”

“2. dear future clones I love you more—than I love myself because there are more of you—than there are of me although I am your mother—and your sister and your ancestor—and look in the mirror of your young face—and look behind you at my olding face—and you can do something only prophets can do—which is to see into the future—“