Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

A Clue to the Exit

London

Chatto & Windus

2000

"Reactions react to reactions like worms impaling themselves more deeply on the hooks they try to escape."

The allure of suicide is to avoid the white terror and the allure of everything else is to avoid suicide. Reactions react to reactions like worms impaling themselves more deeply on the hooks they try to escape. If I refuse to elaborate this feeling, maybe it will fold in on itself. An infinity of unease, given no trade, might shut up shop and turn out to be as small and fleeting as happiness and love and vitality. Why should fear have any more substance than the rest of them, unless I sustain its life with evasion and credulity? Yes, I accept it all, the shame, the cirrhosis, the stupid and unkind things I've said, the boredom of this fucking personality which has stopped me doing anything I don't regret. The unacceptable has finally found its natural dumping ground. Truckloads of hospital waste rain down on me and I wait imperturbably for more. The white terror folds up like a sheet, corner to corner, crease to crease. It can't stand being recognised for what it is: just another feeling. But what a feeling. I think I'd better go for a walk.
(p. 140)

Animals::Insects::Worms

Reading

Edward St. Aubyn, A Clue to the Exit (London: Chatto & Windus, 2000).

09/19/2015