YAMA's BOOK SHELF

アメリカの「新人類」、Generation Xの苦悩を通じてアメリカ、そして先進国の抱える閉塞感を描ききった素晴らしい作品。

"God Hates Japan"(『神は日本を憎んでる』)を読んでファンになり、たまにはと思って原書で読んでみた。日本語のものはどこかの文庫に収録されているはず。

ページの途中に、本文とは直接関係があったりなかったりするけれどもウィットと皮肉の聞いた用語集・注釈がつけてあり、これを読むだけでも面白い。

「苦痛か退屈か 、二つに一つしかない。」楽しいことと楽なことってなかなか巡ってこないしね。

P.68 "You must choose between pain and drudgegy."

P.97 "Give the parents the tiniest of confidences and they'll use them as crowbars to jimmy you open and rearrange your life with no perspective. Sometimes I'd just like to mace them."

何もかもにあきらめを抱いているのかと言うと、そうでもない。

P.149 "Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long.

背筋が寒くなるけど、あんがいこんなものなのかな。最近の親の子供に対する虐待とか、子供の親に対する残虐な反抗や無反応はここから来ているのかもしれない。

P.156 "Stragelove Reproduction: Having children to make up for the fact that one no longer believes in the future."

ClaireがTobiasにふられる場面での印象的な言葉：

P.182 "He said that my main attraction for him was his conviction that I knew a secret about life - some magic insight I had that gave me the strength to quit everyday existence. He said he was curious about the lives you, Dag, and I have built here on the fringe out in California. And he wanted to get my secret for himself - for an escape he hoped to make - except that hre realized by listening to us talk that there was no way he'd ever really do it. He'd never have the guts to live up to complete freedom. The lack of rules would terrify him."