Alexis's Reviews > Manhood: A Journey from Childhood into the Fierce Order of Virility

(3.5)

The way he describes his mind and body is what I imagine would arise in a Victorian who, as an infant, was fed a slurry of flour and water in place of formula.

“If it is a beautiful day, I am filled with anxiety: it’s a bad sign that the weather should be so fine, what terrible event is in store? Similarly, if I take any pleasure at all, I calculate my chances of paying for it in the near future, a hundred times over! for fate is nothing but a usurer.”

“…I cannot help noting with what exactitude this meeting of symbols corresponds to what for me is the profound meaning of suicide: to become at the same time oneself and the other, male and female, subject and object, killed and killer-the only possibility of communing on with oneself.”

“Poetic inspiration seemed to me an altogether rare piece of luck, a momentary gift from heaven which it was the poet’s responsibility to be in a state to receive by means of an absolute purity, and by paying with his misery for the fortuitous benefit of this manna.”