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6fbeec8
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In most professions, getting older means getting better at your job, earning respect because of your seniority and experience. If your job depends on your looks, the opposite is true--how depressing. Suffering other people's unkindness must be difficult too; all those bitter, less attractive people, jealous and resentful of your beauty. That's incredibly unfair of them. After all, beautiful people didn't ask to be born that way. It's as unf..
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Gail Honeyman |
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Then the beat changed abruptly and everyone started doing the same thing, making strange shapes with their arms above their head. It took me a moment or two to learn the shapes, and then I was able to copy them. Free-form jigging, communal shapes in the air; free-form jigging, communal shapes in the air. Dancing was easy!
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Gail Honeyman |
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8032cbe
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The man who had served us was lounging at the counter, nodding his head in time with the music. It was a cacophonous din, with too many guitars and not enough melody. It was, I thought, the sound of madness, the kind of music that lunatics hear in their heads just before they slice the heads off foxes and throw them into their neighbour's back garden.
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Gail Honeyman |
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e7bfc81
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I'm not sure I'd like to be burned. I think I might like to be fed to zoo animals. It would be both environmentally friendly and a lovely treat for the larger carnivores. Could you request that, I wondered. I made a mental note to write to the WWF in order to find out.
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Gail Honeyman |
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9256711
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Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don't find very funny, do things they don't particularly want to, with people whose company they don't particularly enjoy.
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Gail Honeyman |
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Moments later, I received a response: Twenty-first-century communication. I fear for our nation's standards of literacy.
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Gail Honeyman |
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'with bits' - bits of what, I wondered?) and Nurofen tablets. I had to stop myself from leaning forward and explaining that he was wasting his money - this branded non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug was in fact simply ibuprofen 200 mg, the generic version of which was readily available for sale at perhaps one-quarter of the price.
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Gail Honeyman |
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e057a98
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He wasn't using a knife, but held a fork in his right hand like a child or an American.
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Gail Honeyman |
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They were heels which were easy to walk in, but which were, nonetheless "very feminine." On what basis was this decided, and by whom? Did it matter? I made a mental note to research gender politics and gender identity at some point. There would be a book about it--there were books about everything."
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Gail Honeyman |
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6d4b217
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How marvelous to be able to read someone's skin, to explore the story of his life across his chest, his arms, the softness at the back of his neck.
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Gail Honeyman |
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039cc81
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Za lepe ljudi mi je zal. Lepota ze od trenutka, ko jo dobis, minljivo polzi proc. To mora biti tezko. Vedno moras dokazovati, da si se kaj vec od tega, zelis si, da bi ljudje videli pod povrsje, da bi te imeli radi zaradi tebe same in ne zaradi tvojega osupljivega telesa, sijocih oci ali gostih las.
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Gail Honeyman |
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685a1fe
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Med nama je zavladala tisina in drgetala od usmiljenja.
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Gail Honeyman |
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e4c8180
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She was, quite simply, a nice lady who'd raised a family and now lived quietly with her cats and grew vegetables. This was both nothing and everything.
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Gail Honeyman |
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04d5f87
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If often feels as if I'm not here, that I'm a figment of my own imagination. There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I'd lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock.
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Gail Honeyman |
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6d82bbd
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I put my hands to my ears, unable to believe what I was hearing. Without exaggeration, it could only be described as the cacophonous din of hell.
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Gail Honeyman |
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e1145e4
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said, the artwork that was signed off at the end of
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Gail Honeyman |
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d3d7d3b
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Part of me, a very small sliver, briefly considered dipping my head to taste a drop, purely because I'd been ordered not to.
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Gail Honeyman |
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312fa67
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After some contemplation, I had opted for a square of indeterminate white fish, which was coated in bread crumbs and deep fried and then inserted between an overly sweet bread bun, accompanied, bizarrely, by a processed cheese slice, a limp lettuce leaf and some salty, tangy white slime which bordered on obscenity.
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Gail Honeyman |
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f02164c
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I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I'd worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don't find very funny, do things they don't particularly want to, with people whose company they don't particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, ye..
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Gail Honeyman |
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f1fb9d8
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I heard myself sounding angry and sad. No one likes hearing themselves sound like that. If someone said, Please could you describe yourself in two words, and you said, "Erm . . . let me see . . . Angry and Sad?" then that really wouldn't be good."
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Gail Honeyman |
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0c09e6e
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She's not my type, to be honest.' He took a noisy mouthful of beer. 'I mean, looks are important, of course they are, but you've got to be able to have a laugh, enjoy each other's company too, you know? I'm not sure me and Laura have got that much in common.
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Gail Honeyman |
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was reminded of a photograph that the Telegraph had featured some time ago, of a monkey which had grabbed a camera and taken its own grinning photograph (a 'selfie').
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Gail Honeyman |
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10cf8eb
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Aye well - what is it that they say? - try everything once, except incest and morris dancing. Maybe we should add death metal to the list, eh?
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Gail Honeyman |
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b05fe43
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They gave it to me, unloved, unwanted, irreparably damaged. Also the table.
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Gail Honeyman |
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e5a9891
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Sometimes, after counseling sessions, I desperately wanted to buy vodka, lots of it, take it home and drink it down, but in the end I never did. I couldn't, for lots of reasons, one of which was that if I wasn't fit to, then who would feed Glen? She isn't able to take care of herself. She needs me. It isn't annoying, her need--it isn't a burden. It's a privilege. I'm responsible. I chose to put myself in a situation where I'm responsible. W..
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Gail Honeyman |
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b0e8c8a
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I wanted to die - this time, in addition to actually wanting to die, I meant it in the metaphorical sense too. Oh, come on now, I thought to myself, almost amused; just how desperately, on how many levels, does a person have to wish to die before it's actually allowed to happen? Please?
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Gail Honeyman |
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6a6c717
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My life, I realized, had gone wrong. Very, very wrong. I wasn't supposed to live like this. No one was supposed to live like this. The problem was that I simply didn't know how to make it right.
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Gail Honeyman |
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Eleanor, you were AWOL from work for three days, Bob was really worried about you, we all were. I got your address from him, I came round to see if you're OK, and I find you ... I find you ...' '... preparing to kill myself?' I ask.
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Gail Honeyman |
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intervene. He'd elected to look after me himself. I'd been pondering this, and concluded that there must be some people for whom difficult behaviour wasn't a reason to end their relationship with you.
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Gail Honeyman |
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779bb71
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If they liked you - and, I remembered, Raymond and I had agreed that we were pals now - then, it seemed, they were prepared to maintain contact, even if you were sad, or upset, or behaving in very challenging ways.
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Gail Honeyman |
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c49b685
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There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face.
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Gail Honeyman |
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5897dcd
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Fire tests gold, and adversity tests the brave.
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Gail Honeyman |
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Well, there was a man that I took a bit of a liking to, a little crush, you might say, and I got slightly carried away, and then I realized that, actually, I'd been a bit silly. We weren't going to be together. And he - well, it turned out that he wasn't even right for me anyway. He wasn't the man I thought he was. I felt sad about that, and I felt extremely stupid for getting it all so wrong. That's all it was ...
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Gail Honeyman |
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e95ee76
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The world just went on, regardless of what happened. That's how it works.
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Gail Honeyman |
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bc90034
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Life is all about taking decisive action, darling. Whatever you want to do, do it - whatever you want to take, grab it. Whatever you want to bring to an end, END IT. And live with the consequences.
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Gail Honeyman |
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99275f9
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Mummy's a bad person,' I said. 'Really bad. I know that, I've always known that. And I wondered ... do you think I might be bad too? People inherit all sorts of things from their parents, don't they - varicose veins, heart disease. Can you inherit badness?
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Gail Honeyman |
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ac18819
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HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017 Jacket photography (c) Plain Picture / Hanka Steidle Extract of The Lonely City (2016) by Olivia Laing reproduced by permission from Canongate Books Ltd Gail Honeyman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work..
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Gail Honeyman |