I’m bothered by that “I’m sorry” said after a break up that isn’t too ugly but wasn’t agreed upon by both partners either.
Either way it’s said and however many explanations would be offered, it insults the intelligence of the person it’s addressed to. Saying that I’m not speaking of the ugly break ups I eliminate cheating, betraying or violent arguments, therefore only leaving 3 possibilities: “our relationship met some difficulties and I don’t think you’re worth the effort on my part to do my share of the work needed to sort through them”, “better alone than with you” or “I found someone better than you”. And, actually, all these three are reduced to “you’re not good enough for me”.
Reaching this conclusion, it’s obvious that the one saying that “I’m sorry” is not sorry at all. If they would be sorry they’d fight to make that relationship work, not leave the first chance they get. And that “this is better for you too” idea doesn’t work either, as no person has the right to decide what’s better for another. If you are truly sorry that it’s over, then stay and fight so it won’t be over. If not, then at least don’t say it, don’t insult the other’s intelligence.
Or… If you really met someone else that you realized you have strong enough feelings for to make you want to end your current relationship, then you shouldn’t be sorry. Not for your feelings anyway. But you should think again that it’s not good to give the bird in your hand for two in the bush, and that, once you’re in a relationship (excepting the ones where you clearly said from the beginning that they’re only temporary) you should commit fully to that relationship and fight for it, not end it, whatever happens (there are a few exceptions: excessive violence, drug addiction that the other doesn’t want to try to get rid of, and other such things, but these are extremes).
Am I asking too much? Perhaps… Perhaps putting feelings (after you know yourself well enough to know they’re real) way above any trace of reason is too much for some. And perhaps such commitment in a relationship is also too much for many. But… people have something called a soul. When it comes to relationships, at least then, they should ignore their brains and listen only to their soul.
So many times I wonder why must we lead our lives during the day…
Why can’t we wake up at 5-6 PM and go to bed at 7-8 AM?
On the other hand, if everybody would do that, I think I’d start to like the day.
I like the quietness of the night. I like the sound of the night (crickets in the grass, wind on empty streets). At night I even like sounds that I hate during the day, for example that car rushing alone at 4 AM, I like these sounds at night because they’re unique and distinctive, not lost in an ocean of other identical sounds, as it is during the day.
I like the look of the night. Faded colors and details. Shadows everywhere, shadows that sometimes can only be defined by your imagination. I like to look outside and see that nothing moves except for nature (represented, generally, by trees), and even she sits still sometimes.
I like it when night is my own at home. When I’m the only one left awake. Of course, it can be even nicer if my girlfriend is also awake, but only if she feels like spending time with me, which doesn’t happen too often.
I like that I can hear my own thoughts at night without anyone and anything getting in the way. I can daydream. At night I can find a life worth living, at least inside my thoughts. And if it’s in my thoughts, then maybe someday (or, maybe, some night), it will become real.
I think real life is lived at night. I don’t mean active nightlife, but quiet, solitary (or as a couple, if everything goes well) life. At night it’s my life, during the day it’s everyone else’s.
Anne Rice again, and that should say a lot.
For a vampire book, it really lacks vampires for the most part.
I sure will miss Lestat. He’s one of the best created characters of all time if you ask me. And since Anne Rice does somewhat alter her writing style when switching characters, things just don’t feel the same. Also, it’s quite strange to read such details about the mortal life of a vampire and practically nothing about the vampiric one. But those are just things that I’ll have to get used to.
That said, I have to go back to line one of this comment and repeat: Anne Rice again. The book itself is very good.
Oh, one more thing: Read right after Memnoch; it explains something that the author had in mind with the ending of Memnoch.
Rating: 8/10
In many places it simply looks as the fable version of “1984“, but lacking the greatness of the third part of “1984”. That wonderfully written, and very scary, brainwashing from “1984” is showed very lightly and casually here.
Overall, it was very interesting, and also very bold, when it was written and it is still interesting now. Good, but, if you ask me, it’s not really that great.
Rating: 7/10
Absolutely great. Skips the whole introduction part that is quite boring in most books and jumps straight into fast-paced action. Dazzling from start to end.
Before Lestat accepts Memnoch’s offer, it’s as thrilling as the best moments of the other books in the series.
After he does that, it’s so thought-provoking that it may feel overwhelming. Anne Rice offers, through Memnoch’s explanations, an incredibly logical and reasonable theory about the creation of the world and the higher planes of existence. Putting parts of this next to my own theories, I can finally see a reasonable role for a being assuming the role of the Devil. Of course, there are also parts that I wouldn’t even consider as possibly true, but it’s one of the best such theories I heard of so far.
And the end is baffling. I can see more than one way to interpret it and I’m very unsure which one to pick. What was Maharet’s role in all of that? What was the real point of everything? Where did everyone go at the end? How many are left?
I know one thing: I’ll miss Lestat, since as far as I know the books that come after Memnoch in the Chronicles are, just like all the books in the New Tales of the Vampires, stories “written” by David Talbot about the lives of individual vampires, and Lestat has almost no role in them.
Rating: 10/10
