19 April 2009
For the love of LAST WORDS - Part I
Much like limited edition items (e.g. the coconut drink, the new year shampoo whose ingredients included the three gifts brought to baby Jesus, the pineapply-mint soy drink, you name it…) LAST WORDS have mysteriously chanced upon the secret to endearing themselves to me - the very carefully chosen few burdened with the difficult task of closing a journey.
And not in a neurotic or Harry-Burns-dark-side-like way…
When I buy a new book I always read the last page first, that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.
(When Harry met Sally)
…nothing like that, simply deeply appreciative of the responsibility they take on and carry gracefully, their impenetrable, alluring mystery and the lasting impression they sometimes leave (at least on me).
A. and I tried a variation together, browsing books during our month last year which turned out to be equally fun. First words. We figured in between laughter and rolling eyes that the best words employed by Jackie Collins are neither the first nor the last and therefore must be somewhere in the middle. F&T!!! ;) We took note of titles and authors that aroused our interest. We gravitated towards certain books and certain writers and instantly turned to each other to share.
I can no longer walk into a bookstore and bypass that ritual…
First page… last page.
I miss browsing in twos.
[Click on the thumbnail for a larger view]
Some of my favorite last words from movies and novels:
So here we go…
(Punch-drunk love)
Till human voices wake us and we drown.
(The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot)
…as a last, scarcely visible trace of beauty.
(Immortality - Milan Kundera)
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
(The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Possibly with a blank sheet of paper enclosed, by way of explanation.
(Raise high the roofbeam, carpenters - J.D. Salinger)
…its origin and purpose still a total mystery.
(2001 - A Space Odyssey)
It will always be too late. Fortunately!
(The Fall - Albert Camus)
…had been the means of uniting them.
(Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen)
Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
(The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger)
Now, where was I?
(Memento)
This life came so close to never happening.
(25th Hour)
Tenho saudade de tudo. Dora.
(Central do Brasil)
You will someday.
(American Beauty)
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
(Walden - Henry David Thoreau)
You must have done this all your life. Continue.
(The Dreamlife of Angels)
You met me at a very strange time in my life.
(Fight Club)
I know.
(Before Sunset)
Any second now.
(Say Anything…)
You could look it up.
(Bull Durham)
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever/
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Books, novels, movies, films, quotes, last, words, browsing, mystery, Eliot, Austen, Salinger, Kundera, Camus, Fitzgerald, Thoreau, before, sunset, memento, bull, durham, american, beauty, punch-drunk, love










































