03 August, 2007

“You forget what you want to remember”

Often when I’m reading a book, I come across something I feel like sharing: a few lines, a stray passage, maybe even just a particularly well-constructed sentence. I may not like the whole book, and may not even have finished it at the time I feel like blogging that bit, so I can’t write about it on IU Faves or Rave Out. So I’m starting a new series with this post called Excerpts.

The first one is from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road:

They passed through the city at noon of the day following. He kept the pistol to hand on the folded tarp on top of the cart. He kept the boy close to his side. The city was mostly burned. No sign of life. Cars in the street caked with ash, everything covered with ash and dust. Fossil tracks in the dried sludge. A corpse in a doorway dried to leather. Grimacing at the day. He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put in your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things, don’t you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.