[b]Meg Wolitzer
If someone said ‘diametrically,’ could ‘opposed’ be far behind?[/b]
Why wouldn’t it be?
Everyone simply had to wait patiently in order to lose the people they loved one by one, all the while acting as if they weren’t waiting for that at all.
My guess: Only almost everyone.
The city was a paradox, though maybe it had always been one. You could have an excellent life here, even as everything disintegrated. The city at that moment was not a place that anyone would remember with nostalgia, except for the fact that in the midst of all this, if you played it right, your money could double, and you could buy a big apartment with triple-glazed windows that overlooked the chaos.
Unless of course like me you played it wrong and the chaos tagged along.
Though Jonah felt transfixed inside his own childhood, no one else saw him as a child. He was already over the hump of middle age, heading rapidly toward those year that no one like to speak of. The best parts had already passed for people Jonah’s age. By now you were meant to have become what you would finally be, and to gracefully and unobtrusively stay in that state for the rest of your life.
Oh well, so much for “you’re only as young as you feel”.
Is there anything sadder than the scrawniest little piece of uneaten chicken at a dinner party?
Hmm, said Jules. Yes. The Holocaust.
Not for some though.
The past is so tenacious.
Or, from time to time, not tenacious enough.