Feb
7
“Joshua glared up and down Whitehall, at the happy people going about their dress rehearsal. They were all confident that it wouldn’t happen or certain they could deal with it if it did. But the world happens to you, thought Joshua, you don’t happen to the world. There’s nothing you can do. For the first time in his life, he truly believed that. And Marcus Chalfen believed the direct opposite. And there in a nutshell, he realized, is how I got here, turning out of Westminster, watching Big Ben approach the hour when I shall topple my father’s house. that is how we all got here. Between rocks and hard places. The frying pan and the fire.”
After fitful stops and starts in the first hundred pages, I blew through the middle section of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. I’ve forced myself to slow down and savor the final 100 pages, and the above bit from p.412 is one of the many nuggets that I love.
