At a certain point Michele himself must have realized it, and he became gripped by a kind of melancholy. He had murmured that women for him were all games with a few holes for playing in. All. All except one. Lina was the only woman in the world he loved—love, yes, as in the films—and respected. He told me, Gigliola sobbed, that she would have known how to furnish this house. He told me that giving her money to spend, yes, that would be a pleasure. He told me that with her he could have become someone truly important, in Naples. He said to me: You remember what she did with the wedding photo, you remember how she fixed up the shop? And you, and Pinuccia, and all the others, what the fuck are you, what the fuck do you know how to do? He had said all those things to her and not only those. He had told her that he thought about Lila night and day, but not with normal desire, his desire for her didn't resemble what he knew. In reality he didn't want her. That is, he didn't want her the way he generally wanted women, to feel them under him, to turn them over, turn them again, open them up, break them, step on them, and crush them. He didn't want her in order to have sex and then forget her. He wanted the subtlety of her mind with all its ideas. He wanted her imagination. And he wanted her without ruining her, to make her last. He wanted her not to screw her—that word applied to Lila disturbed him. He wanted to kiss her and caress her. He wanted to be caressed, helped, guided, commanded. He wanted to see how she changed with the passage of time, how she aged. He wanted to talk with her and be helped to talk. You understand? He spoke of her in a way that to me, to me—when we are about to get married—he has never spoken. I swear it's true. - excerpt from Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series |
i have no problem annotating my favorites from poetry collections and whatnot, but when it comes to physical novels? i'm just not a fan of leaving a mark on them. whenever i come across passages which inspire me in some way, i have a habit of snapping a picture of the page. (
this particular passage had a taste of madness to it, of what on the surface seems to be an oddly innocent desperation and yearning mingled with violence and cruelty which fascinated me. the solaras brothers were vile bastards in this series. no doubt. but there was maybe an ounce of pity(? not really) in seeing how he became lost in the longing for someone and something that is forever out of reach. so much so that he resorted to chasing the shadow of a shadow by finding her presence in another - a tragic replacement brought about by lila's own wickedness. fascinating characters all around. it might be interesting to play around with similar themes in a story if i'm in the mood for a darker roleplay. |