Within The Following Story one of the most beautiful parts of the book is Maria Zeinstra class lecture which is sat in on by our main character who is depicted as Socrates throughout the book. Socrates is completely transfixed with Maria who seems to be completely uninterested in him (except for vengeful reasons) this is proven in the way he sees her completely mundane lecture this is shown in the end paragraph on page 40.
"'Now she is gnawing a hole in the carcass." And so she was. The excavator, mother egg-bearer, lover, murderess, mama, chewed a lump out of the ball of rat ad regurgitated it into the hole she had extracted it from. 'Now she's making a food trough.' Carrion pellet, egg chamber food trough."
Such disgusting and uninteresting descriptions are used in the lecture yet to Socrates he might as well be hearing angels singing.
More fantastic quotes from The Following Story are...
"Life's a bucket of shit htat keeps being added to, and we have to drag it around with us till hte end." (p44)
"I wanted to tell her that, too, but unfortunately conversatons consist for hte most part of things one does not say." (p51)
"(Father Fermi: 'But you as a classical scholar out to know that death is a woman')" (p112)
"That is another thing I have learned: when women are out to get something, they are capable of mobilizing foreces that men, for all their so-called strenght of purpose, cannoth match." (p22)
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I appreciate your blog, at the end of my last post I mentioned how I think Nooteboom lacks the sarcasm and wit of Nabokov, but your blog reminded me of these funny passages and you have made me rethink that point. I have to admit...I am mildly biased toward V.N. due to the length of time we spent together last semester.
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