“People are weak.”
“As a general rule,” said the Rat, snapping his fingers a couple of times. “But line up all the generalities you like and you still won’t get anywhere. What I’m talking about is a very individual thing. Weakness is something that rots in the body. Like gangrene. I’ve felt that ever since I was a teenager. That’s why I was always on edge. There’s this something inside you that’s rotting away and you feel it all along. Can you understand what it’s like?”
I sat silent, wrapped up in the blanket.
“Probably not,” the Rat continues. “There isn’t that side to you. But well, anyway, that’s weakness. It’s the same as a hereditary disease, weakness. No matter how much you understand it, there’s nothing you can do to cure yourself. It’s not going to go away with a clap of a hand. It just keeps getting worse and worse.”
——
A Wild Sheep Chase
Haruki Murakami
Sunda Dalí: Book Transforming Itself into a Nude Woman, 1940. Oil on canvas, 16¼ x 20⅛; inches. Private collection.
This painting was hidden from public view from 1941 until 2004. As a result it is not included in Robert Descharnes catalogue raisonné or in any other exhibition prior to that point.
The open book in the foreground is in the process of transforming into a reclining nude woman. The knife separates the woman’s buttocks. A similar theme can be seen in the 1936 Autumn Cannibalism.
