遥望
我们的作品，创作的动机，画狗的笔法，吸引我们的人，不能忘怀的原因。每一样都是一块拼图，基因也是。我们身体里隐藏着其他自我，其中有一些是我们熟悉的。我们带着他们，走过生命的每个转角。
虽说是遥望，但实际是永远不能到达。
你会发现人们（又或是作家们？）都普遍存在这种情感，又存在一定的差异：
为什么我们会遥望彼此？
遥望¶
安娜、库珀和克莱尔.
她和拉斐尔之间相敬如宾，彼此小心谨慎地交往。他们发展友谊的方式，像中世纪孤苦伶仃的人，在步入婚礼殿堂或奔赴战场前一晚聚到一块。因此，安娜没有察觉到，拉斐尔表现出的散漫与他性格不符（撇开几天前当着安娜的面，他用手指精确地把蜜蜂从吉他上弹开的举动不论）。而拉斐尔对安娜更是一无所知。她是谁？这个把他领到这间斗室的女人，屋里放着她的大部分家当——书本、期刊、护照、一张精心折叠的地图、档案磁带，连香皂也是她从另一个世界带来的。这井然有序的一切，仿佛就是她这个人。其实，我们爱上的只是幽灵。
She and Rafael keep between them a formality that makes them careful with each other. They have stepped into this friendship the way solitaries in medieval times might have bundled together for the night before journeying on towards a destination of marriage or war. So that Anna is not aware that the casualness in Rafael she witnesses is inconsistent with his nature (save for the territorial precision with which he flicked that bee off his guitar in her presence a few days earlier), while he knows scarcely a thing about her. Who is she? This woman who has led him into this medicine cabinet of a room where most of her possessions exist—books, journals, passport, a carefully folded map, archival tapes, even the soap she has brought with her from her other world. As if this orderly collection of things is what she is. So we fall in love with ghosts.
小说非常有趣的部分是异教徒教库珀如何成为一名合格的赌徒。而这段则是赌徒库珀得胜脱身之后的又一次赌局。
安娜和库珀有很多共通之处，两人都掩藏自己，以（自以为）了解别人而安心。安娜不断地向别人发问（在小说的描写中，这些发问都不冠以引号以表示这是对话，而更像是内心的独白），对自己的过去完全避而不谈；库珀保持少言，却十分擅长观察和分析，尽管外在表现出来的是一副淡定的模样——事实上他认为自己确是如此，一切皆在掌握之中，然而不管是面对安娜的父亲还是布里吉特的团伙，在被真相揭开之后他都像木偶一样迟钝。
如果初次见面时，库珀没有凭直觉从布丽吉特身上发现她是个瘾君子或毒贩，看上去背景复杂，和许多人有染，那么，他可能离她远远的，也不会在第二个星期五和她再度在乔科店共进晚餐，还送她回家。就像几世纪前，他不会捡起一只故意掉落的手套，把它还给正在散步的女人。他自以为知道的一切，令他觉得放心。无论是吸吮从水烟壶里喷出的奶白色烟雾，还是把针头扎进自己的血管，只要她在毒品中找到比爱情更多的快感，那意味着，库珀对她而言并不重要。他至多是她一个星期里短暂的一味调剂。他心想，也许几个月后，她甚至记不起他是谁。身为一个合格的赌徒，直觉告诉他，这个女人对他没有危险。
If Bridget had not been an addict or a dealer, if she had not been one whose life seemed engaged with many others, if these qualities had been absent among the clues Cooper had intuited in their first meeting, he probably would have avoided her, would not have had another meal with her at Jocko’s the following Friday, or taken that walk to her apartment. Just as, in an earlier century, he would not have picked up the carefully dropped glove and returned it to the strolling woman. The knowledge of all he assumed made him feel safe. If Bridget sucked a milkywhite smoke up through a water pipe or put a needle into her veins, if she found more pleasure in that than in romance, it meant he would not be important to her. He would remain at most a fragment in her week. She might, he thought, not even recall him a few months from now. As a competent gambler, his instinct told him she would not be a danger to him.
光逝¶
光逝这篇小说的文风很平淡，最开始我觉得是翻译的问题，但后来看原文才发现这篇小说的对话和人物动作都非常直白（相比于充满装饰感的环境）。
但我就是想读，可能是对于“逝去感”有种迷恋：逝去的世界，逝去的传统，逝去的感情，在明知道走向毁灭的同时应该怎么做？虽然与我关心的问题有些接近，但是可惜，并没有谈论存在主义。
而下面这段就是表现逝去的一个场景，在我现在看来写得很一般，谁会像写信一样讲话？书卷气息太过于强烈了，又或者作者就想要表现格温的倾诉欲？
她转向德克，伸出双手握住他的手，“是的，我想过你。我曾想过，当你我还在阿瓦隆的时候，一切都要好得多；我曾想过，或许我爱的依然是你，而不是加恩；我还曾想过，我们能够重温旧梦，再续前缘。可你不明白吗？事实并非如此，德克，而你所做的一切也不会让它实现，聆听这座城市，聆听克莱尼·拉米娅之歌，歌声中才有真相。你会想起我，我有时也会想起你，但那只是因为我们的感情已经死去。这是它如此美好的唯一原因。那是属于昨天和明天的幸福，却不属于今天，德克，它绝不可能。因为它毕竟只是个幻影，一个远远看去颇为真实的幻影。我们之间结束了，我沉溺于幻想的旧情人啊，结束了。其实这才是最棒的，只有这样，一切才显得美好。”
She turned toward him and took his hand in both of hers. “Yes, I’ve thought of you. I’ve thought that things were better when you and I were together back on Avalon, and I’ve thought that maybe it was still you I loved and not Jaan, and I’ve thought that you and I could bring the magic back, make it all make sense again. But don’t you see? It isn’t so, Dirk, and all your pushing won’t make it so. Listen to the city, listen to Kryne Lamiya. There’s your truth. You think about me, and I sometimes about you, only because it’s dead between us. That’s the only reason it seems better. Happiness yesterday and happiness tomorrow, but never today, Dirk. It can’t be, because it’s only an illusion after all, and illusions only look real from a distance. We’re over, my dreamy lost love, over, and that’s the best thing of all, because it’s the only thing that makes it good.”
撒谎¶
如果试图阅读同一个人的两个自传，稍微注意一下不难发现有矛盾之处。同一个人，同一件事情，从不同的嘴里面吐出来的时候也有截然不同的感受。被讲述的故事很难单纯的作为故事存在，有可能，被讲述的故事就是为了表现讲述者的情绪，迎合自己的想法，也有可能，被讲述的故事是为了让听者产生某种固定的感受，故意染成某种颜色。
不可避免的，有一些细节被省略了，然而听者细心地把故事记下来（甚至增加了一些细节），不知道出自什么原因，也许是觉得自己获取了什么了不起的信息（就像我现在这样），或者是认为应该对某些人的讲话给予一定重视。
然后故事成了「事实」，甚至是「信念」。
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
撒谎好像是人的天性，然而，最有意思的事情其实是我们自己也并不知道为什么撒谎。人们发明了一个词语：矫揉造作，用来形容不自然地故意做作，然而，我觉得似乎我们非常善于自然地故意做作。这就是，好像这件事情就是这样。