Saturday 29 August 2015

the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy


Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness”, “joy”, or “regret”. Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster”. Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy”. I’d like to show how “imitations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age”. I’d like to have a word for “sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar”. I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, (…).
Middlesex
By Jeffrey Eugenides