ellauri011.html on line 566: In his central figure, not-quite-Paulo, he has created (I imagine by mistake) a devastating portrait of a man whose stock in trade is spirituality but who is worldly to his very toenails, exquisitely attuned to his own status. He is constantly reminding himself how many books he has sold, how many languages they have been translated into, and that he is 'despite all the adverse reviews, a possible candidate for a major literary prize'. When he takes up with another woman (strictly to dispel the Zahir, of course), he chooses a successful French actress of 35, on the grounds that she was the only candidate to enjoy his status, 'because she too was famous and knew that celebrity counts'. Celebrity is an aphrodisiac. 'It was good for a woman's ego to be with a man and know that he had chosen her even though he had had the pick of many others.' And the man's ego, does that come into it? Not-quite-Paulo is too gallant to reveal his own age, but if he is indeed a refraction of the author then he is 20 years Marie's senior. It's adorable that he should regard himself so solemnly as the trophy in this pairing.
ellauri022.html on line 988: the words of Farhad the sculptor of exquisite forms
ellauri051.html on line 1908: 1292 I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors, 1292 Nojaan upeiden joustavien ovien kynnyksille,
ellauri151.html on line 236: I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite.
ellauri191.html on line 733: "for his deep understanding of his country's peasantry and the exquisite art with which he has portrayed their way of life and their relationship with Nature"
ellauri241.html on line 254: A full-born beauty new and exquisite? Täysin syntynyt kaunotar uusi ja hieno?
ellauri389.html on line 87: The essay resembles "Old China" in both its paean to Chinese exports ("China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of"), and its detailed understanding of consumer economics. The titular anecdote is a fable about a Chinese boy's discovery, in the "ages when men ate their meat raw," of the pleasure of roast pig. The wondrous qualities of cooked food produce an immediate "tickling" in one's "nether" or "lower regions", just as Arvi Järnefelt warned. Bo-bo discovers the exquisite flavor when he accidentally sets fire to his house and swine. LOL what idiots, the kinks. Interestingly, roast pig and tea are among the luxuries that the Guernsies hoard during the German occupation.
xxx/ellauri123.html on line 1051: don't know what is. Arresting, as well as disgusting, to suddenly notice that Lolita (who died giving birth to a stillborn girl, for Christ's sake) would have been 86 this year. … the thought that with patience and luck I might have her produce eventually a nymphet with my blood in her exquisite veins, a Lolita the Second, who would be eight or nine around 1960, when I would still be dans la force d'age; indeed, the telescopy of my mind, or un-mind, was strong enough to distinguish in the remoteness of time a vieillard encore vert—or was it green rot?—bizarre, tender, salivating Dr. Humbert, practicing on supremely lovely Lolita the Third the art of being a granddad.
xxx/ellauri170.html on line 368: A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes; it was an interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might blow....
xxx/ellauri170.html on line 680: Several years ago, an Australian abo named Richard* chanced upon a novel method of attaining an exquisite degree of happiness and contentment. The simple method that he used, he later termed actualism. Later on, he would find a way to dwell permanently in a state of utter delight, stillness and peace – through a process of self-immolation – eradicating the self permanently and living only as a body and its consciousness. This was an actual freedom from the human condition – or actual freedom, for short.
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