Voyage

You also asked what I do. I read. This morning I finished The Street of Crocodiles for the third time. I found it almost unbearably beautiful.

Also I watch movies. My brother got me a DVD player. You wouldn't believe how many movies I've watched in the last month. That's what I do. Watch movies and read. Sometimes I even pretend to write, but I'm not fooling anyone. Oh, and I go to the mailbox.

- The History of Love, Jacob Marcus 的來信

這場景是如此似曾相識的熟悉，除了我還有個工作得每天上工。而且，寫這封信的人，當時在威尼斯。也許是因為我剛讀完作家們的威尼斯吧，有種到那兒都撞見這個地名的感覺。

...For a while, new feelings were being invented all the time. Desire was born early, as was regret. When stubbornness was felt for the fist time, it started a chain reaction, creating the feeling of resentment on the one hand, and alienation and loneliness on the other.

...It's also true that sometimes people felt things and, because there was no word for them, they went unmentioned. The oldest emotion in the world may be that of being moved; but to describe it - just to name it - must have been like trying to catch something invisible.

...Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist. There are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, whe a peice of music no one has ever written, or a painteng no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the hearts surges, and absorbs the impact.

- "The Birth of Feeling", feelings are not as old as time.

也許，真的如這本書中書所言，所有感受/感情/感覺，都是後來的。無以名之時，我們便都不提起。那就是為什麼有藝術，無論是音樂，繪畫或建築。它或許是種情感宣示的媒體，也許也可能是某種情感保存的載體。

The History of Love 雖被列為小說 (2006年 Orange Prize for Fiction決選名單)，表現形式卻非一般的小說文體，用不同的故事，三個面向和寫作方式同時交叉進行。只有一本在小說裡被提及的書「The History of Love」似乎隱隱串起不同的人生，不同的故事。讀來有種淡淡的悲傷 (雖然我才讀到一半)。怪的是，我似乎對淡淡悲傷的書沒什麼抵抗力。言語無味的，會在翻讀幾頁後就被放棄；太呼天搶地的，句子看起來就已經很累，當然也就累到無法感受到應該感受到的。而淡淡的東西，如同之前說到的綠光，都會像人家形容的水果酒，喝起來沒什麼，後座力很強，造成宿醉的能力也不遑多讓。