Excerpts from The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, pt.2

"But depression was not the right word. This was a plunge that contained sadness and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick and soaked nausea against all humanity and all human endeavor since the beginning of time. The suffering repugnance of the biological order. Old age, disease, death. No one escaped. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruits about to spoil. And yet somehow people still kept fucking and breeding and throwing new fodder into the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer in this way as if it were something redeeming, or good, or even morally admirable: dragging more innocent creatures to the game you lose in one way or another. Squirming babies and complacent drugged moms dragging their feet. Oh, isn't he cute? Ohhh ... Children screaming and slipping on the playground with no idea what the future of hell awaits them: dull jobs, bad marriages, hair loss, hip prostheses, lonely cups of coffee in an empty house, and a colostomy bag in the hospital."

"Most people seemed pleased with the fine decorative nail polish and cunning stage lighting that sometimes made the intrinsic atrocity that the unpleasant human situation seemed somewhat more mysterious or less repulsive. People bet, played golf, planted gardens, traded stocks; they had sex, they bought new cars, they practiced yoga, they worked, they prayed, they redecorated the house, they were shaken by the news, they worried about their children, they gossiped about their neighbors, they bent over restaurant reviews, they founded charities, they supported candidates, went to the US Open, ate dinner, traveled, and were continually distracted by information, text, messages, entertainment from all directions to try to force themselves to forget: where we are, who we are. But in the bright light there was no way to disguise things. It was rotten from head to toe. Devote your time to the office; obediently raise their two or three offspring; smile politely at the retirement party; chew the sheets and smother with peach syrup in the asylum. It was better never to have been born, never wanted anything, never expected anything."

Who would say it was in my power to make someone so happy? Or that I could be happy myself? My mood was like a slingshot; after being locked and numb for years, my heart was pounding and pounding like a bee in a glass, all bright, clear, confusing, wrong, but it was clear pain compared to the tasteless misery that had plagued me for years on drugs. like a rotten tooth, the sick and dirty pain of something spoiled. The clarity was exciting; It was as if I had taken off dirty glasses that blurred everything I saw. All summer long I've been practically delirious: shivering with excitement, gobbling, full of energy, living on gin and shrimp cocktail and the invigorating din of the tennis balls. And all I could think about was Kitsey, Kitsey, Kitsey!