"So what? Why are you being truthful all of a sudden? Wasn't it a lie when you told the little man that they don't think much of you at Visual Arts? And wasn't it a lie when you told the little man that he had tried to seduce me? And wasn't it a lie when you invented Helena? When you've told so many lies, what does it matter if you tell one more and praise him in the review? That's the only way you can smooth things out."
"You see, Klara," I said, "you think that a lie is a lie, and it would seem that you're right. But you aren't. I can invent anything, make a fool of someone, carry out hoaxes and practical jokes—and I don't feel like a liar and I don't have a bad conscience. These lies, if you want to call them that, represent me as I really am. With such lies I'm not simulating anything, with such lies I'm in fact speaking the truth. But there are things I can't lie about. There are things I've penetrated, whose meaning I've grasped, that I love and take seriously. I can't joke about these things. If I did I'd humiliate myself. It's impossible, don't ask me to do it, I can't."
This one is from Milan Kundera's "Lovable Loves". I am head over heels in love with Kundera, and its passages like these that make me adore him both as a writer and a philosopher.
This passage could be me talking to my love, telling her, why I sometimes lie. Not all lies are equal. All truths are not equal too. In the end, what matters is our values, our sins and our poems. Now who will explain that to the world I co-habit.
Sir Milan, take a bow.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment