Something about the people you meet ...

I'm entranced by the novella I'm reading at the moment, "A Month in the Country" by J.L Carr. While there are many reasons to enjoy the feathery read, the story is most inviting due in part to my mental state as of late (and at 135 pages, it's been easy to pick up). The story follows a man close to my age who leaves the loud, manic streets of London to restore a medieval mural found recently at a church in a small English town. Simply written, the book has been a tremendous joy. But the theme of simplicity is what has caused the book to resonate. My life has been pretty loud lately (as if you hadn't noticed by the lack of blogging I've — or we've, if you follow the current theories of my multipersonality — done). Lots of stuff at work, very little time to myself and some family happenings from back home thrown in to the mix. For all the dissonance around me, this book takes me back to how I felt while reading Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises." It's a treasure.

So, there's a passage that reminded me of people that have passed through my life and how at times I've treated them and that got me to thinking that this represents those dealings painfully well. And as much as I like the book, this passage made me hate it just as much.

"I never exchanged a word with the Colonel. He has no significance at all in what happened during my stay in Oxgodby. As far as I'm concerned he might just as well have gone round the corner and died. But that goes for most of us, doesn't it? We look blankly at each other. Here I am, here you are. What are we doing here? What do you suppose it's all about? Let's dream on. Yes, that's my Dad and Mum over there on the piano top. My eldest boy is on the mantelpiece. That cushion cover was embroidered by my cousin Sarah only a month before she passed on. I go to work at eight and come home at five-thirty. When I retire they'll give me a clock— with my name engraved on the back. Now you know all about me. Go away: I've forgotten you already."