Phantom Menace Over
We are taking a break from the series - Collections. Rest assured, we will be back on track - after a while - just a few diversions along the way.
I was reading my old posts and stumbled upon this post - http://navjotkashyap.blogspot.com/2005/11/phantom-menace.html - written back in 2005. Please do read it, before moving forward on this post, so that you can understand the full context.
Phantom Menace was tamed longed ago. The book I was referring to was - Phantom by Susan Kay. My younger brother had gone to US sometime back and I had asked him to bring it for me from there. Although it cost me a bunch, but that was immaterial.
Last week, I read it again and have penned down all the beautiful lines, I could come across. I might have missed a few as I was skipping paragraphs while reading it.
My suggestion to you would be to make Patiala Lassi [Recipe here - http://www.indobase.com/recipes/details/lassi-patiala.php] and pour it in a big silver glass and drink it slowly, while reading it. Do not rush. Read slowly, Read a line. Take break. Think about it. Let your vivid imagery draw up anything that it feels like. Then move forward. Enjoy it maximum.
Enjoy.
Cheers
None of us can choose where we will love. -Erik
In that last, lonely moment of thrusting anguish, it seemed to me that there was no one left alive in this world but me, that I would be shut up for all eternity in this black poison of pain. -Erik's mother
But music was the keystone of his extraordinary genius. Music welled up from some bottomless pool within him and flowed like a ceaseless fountain through his fingertips, making an instrument of virtually every object that fell into his inventive hands. -Erik's mother
The words were for God, but the voice, the acquisitive, irresistible voice, was for me and it pulled like a magnet somewhere deep and unseen inside my body. Erik's mother
There was no plan, no coherent thought, in my head, just a deep instinctive need to get away, far, far away. -Erik
There was no better way to raise a demon in my brain then to tell me a thing could not be done. Impossibility was not a concept that I acknowledged. -Erik
POWER. I was beginning to acquire the taste of it, to see it as a very satisfactory substitute for happiness.... for love. -Erik
Creation - and destruction - were the only lusts I would acknowledge henceforth, I would be like God, an absolute force, beyond question..... beyond restraint. -Erik
There is nothing, I cannot do, if I choose. -Erik
Perfection, always perfection . . . nothing less would ever do in anything to which he set his mind. -Christine
My mind has touched the furthest horizons of mental imagination and reaches even outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowledge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand. And yet, like Faust, I look in vain, I learn in vain.....For as long as I live, no women will ever look on me in Love. -Erik
I wish I could hate him, but I couldn't. He was still my conscience. -Erik
I'm beginning to realize just how much of a child she really is, how terrifyingly immature and vulnerable . . . even unstable. There's a fatal flaw running though her like a crack in a Ming Dynasty vase, but that imperfection makes me love her with even greater tenderness. -Erik
Even in silence there was music in his hands, a cadence which seemed to flow irresistibly through his fingertips. -Christine
I hated broken promises and dishonored pledges; I hated going back on my word. Disappointment is such an exhausting emotion- all that energy dissipated first in painful hoping and then in futile, hopeless resentment. -Erik
I was alive, and I had never lived. Erik
Like a house with no foundations, unable to resist the first tremor of an earthquake, my existence had tumbled all around me to ruins. -Erik
Hell is not a place, its a state of mind and body, hell is obsession with a voice, a face, a name....-Erik
I was obsessed with Christine Daae, irretrievably and disgustingly fixated with the desire to possess which I knew I could not have. -Erik
I punished myself without mercy for the wickedness of wanting. But still I wanted her.... -Erik
I began to lie to myself, to cheat and deceive that other half that cried out that this could not be, this must not be. -Erik
But his voice is my inspiration and my reward. It lifts me from my earthly shell and carries me to the very edge of the universe, a wondrous flight of body and soul that leaves me utterly exhausted. -Christine
I am living in a dream. There is no reality, no existence, beyond those fleeting hours in which I teach her. The time between her lessons is a meaningless void, and the nights when she does not comes to the theater are one long, unending fever of anguished waiting. It seems to me that I do nothing but sit staring at the clock, willing time away, so that once more I may be close to her. So near, so near ....and yet so far away. -Erik
The calender tells me three months have passed, but they could be three seconds or three centuries for all the difference it makes. -Erik
At length I carried her through to the second bedroom and lay her down on my mother's bed, covering her tenderly with a shawl and watching the pale material slowly settle and cling to the outline of her form, enveloping her with the warmth and intimacy that I could never share. If its possible to be jealous of a shawl, then I was wickedly jealous. -Erik
Her head drooped lower and lower until it almost rested on my knee.... almost, but not quite. -Erik
To every tear that went down her cheek, I have shed hundreds. -Erik
I won't beg. Not even for your love. I have asked you to marry me, but I don't want your answer now. I would like you to come back tomorrow evening. Will you promise me to do that Christine, Will you promise to come back and tell me.....even if the answer is no. -Erik
Twenty four hours I had given her because I did not yet have the courage to face her answer without making a disgusting spectacle of my grief. -Erik
But, as I looked at the ring, I knew without question that I was going to have to find that courage and let her go with dignity. She did not love me, but respected me enough as a man - a human being - to honor me with a decency of a considered reply. And, I in my turn, must honor her decision. I would keep my pride, this time, no tears, no degrading groveling to make me burn with shame at the memory. Pride was all that I would be left with to sustain me through the ordeal of her refusal, pride would make me wish her well and let us part with civilized curtsy.....-Erik
Such a little thing really, a kiss .... most people don't give a moment's consideration. They kiss on meeting, they kiss on parting, that simple touching of flesh is taken entirely for granted as a basic human right. I have lived on this earth half a century without knowing what it is to be kissed ... and I'll never know now. -Erik
I'd totally dismantled this child... taken her to pieces in my crazed determination to make her heart tick in harmony with my own. I'd taught her to sing like one of God's angels, I'd loved her more than anything else upon this earth... but my love had destroyed her, reduced her to a pitiful creature barely aware of her own actions... made her as mad as I was myself. -Erik
He had given me the wings of an angel and taught me how to fly. -Christine
Slowly, hesitantly, as though fighting against the wavering instincts of a lifetime, he offered his gloved hand to help me ascend the carriage step. It was the first time he had ever directly invited physical contact from me and the moment was fraught with tense significance for us both. My fingers had only to close that little distance between us and I would be a child to him no longer.
In the moonlight his gloved hand was elusively normal; it looked warm and strong and quite curiously reassuring, the hand not of a monster and a murderer, but of a gentle, loving man, who waited with infinite patience for one little sign of hope . .-Christine
I want to build something beautiful... something in this world that he would have been proud of. There had to be a purpose in being in this world.... There has to be some purpose in living... -Erik
My voice was my only one beauty, my only one power, my only hope; my voice would open a magic pathway into her life.
I realized that his voice had become, for me, a drug as powerful as morphine, necessary to my senses, vital to my existence. His silence was a punishment beyond my strength to bear. -Christine
This nervous, anxious, well-meaning lady had taught me to respect all members of the weaker sex. She had dropped one pearl of purity into my soul, and even now, after all these years, it was still there, displacing a little of the dank, disgusting sludge of depravity. I had done many terrible things, but I had never harmed a helpless woman. -Erik
There's so much darkness in my head, sometimes it frightens me too... but it need not be like this, Christine. If I could just live like other men, walk through the Bois in daylight and feel the sun and wind upon my naked face... Oh Christine, I would be dare to do so many things if you were there beside me as my wife. -Erik
She was a lovely, wilting flower that I longed to rescue from the strangling creep of weeds. I wanted to plant her safely in the labyrinth beneath the Opera House, to hide her from the world so that no one else should ever find he, hurt her . . . take her away from me. I could make her grow . . . I knew I could make her grow . . . if only I dared to reach out and lift her from the barren, acrid soil that was stifling her natural talent. -Erik
Guilt, I thought, with a flicker of remorse for my heartlessness ... guilt is surely the saddest of all human emotions. But guilt is not love; it is a fire that consumes without giving warmth to those not embraced in its tangled coils. -Erik
He moved with a slow majesty, as though his whole body was informed by the rhythm of a music he alone could hear...-Christine
The thought of that white rose filled me with bitter shame... Yearning to turn and reach out to him, I remained unable to conquer that inner fear; it was a chasm I dared not cross. And so I sat there, like the little mouse in Aesop's fable, not daring to look upon the lion bound by cruel ropes. Chained by fate and shackled by pride, he starved in silent pain; and because I lacked the courage of a rose, I could not set him free. -Christine
Happiness is like the first blissful intoxication of morphine. It doesn't last very long. -Erik
I do not languish in his power like a pale prisoner, denied the light of day, but I grow ever upwards beneath the benevolent sun of his genius. Where once I was content to be a wilting marigold, I now aspire to the glorious height of a sunflower. He has captured all the wonders of the universe, enchanting baubles that reflect shafts of incandescent light. And like the child, starved of toys, I reach out eagerly with both hands, turning my back gladly on the world I left behind. -Christine
I was reading my old posts and stumbled upon this post - http://navjotkashyap.blogspot.com/2005/11/phantom-menace.html - written back in 2005. Please do read it, before moving forward on this post, so that you can understand the full context.
Phantom Menace was tamed longed ago. The book I was referring to was - Phantom by Susan Kay. My younger brother had gone to US sometime back and I had asked him to bring it for me from there. Although it cost me a bunch, but that was immaterial.
Last week, I read it again and have penned down all the beautiful lines, I could come across. I might have missed a few as I was skipping paragraphs while reading it.
My suggestion to you would be to make Patiala Lassi [Recipe here - http://www.indobase.com/recipes/details/lassi-patiala.php] and pour it in a big silver glass and drink it slowly, while reading it. Do not rush. Read slowly, Read a line. Take break. Think about it. Let your vivid imagery draw up anything that it feels like. Then move forward. Enjoy it maximum.
Enjoy.
Cheers
None of us can choose where we will love. -Erik
In that last, lonely moment of thrusting anguish, it seemed to me that there was no one left alive in this world but me, that I would be shut up for all eternity in this black poison of pain. -Erik's mother
But music was the keystone of his extraordinary genius. Music welled up from some bottomless pool within him and flowed like a ceaseless fountain through his fingertips, making an instrument of virtually every object that fell into his inventive hands. -Erik's mother
The words were for God, but the voice, the acquisitive, irresistible voice, was for me and it pulled like a magnet somewhere deep and unseen inside my body. Erik's mother
There was no plan, no coherent thought, in my head, just a deep instinctive need to get away, far, far away. -Erik
There was no better way to raise a demon in my brain then to tell me a thing could not be done. Impossibility was not a concept that I acknowledged. -Erik
POWER. I was beginning to acquire the taste of it, to see it as a very satisfactory substitute for happiness.... for love. -Erik
Creation - and destruction - were the only lusts I would acknowledge henceforth, I would be like God, an absolute force, beyond question..... beyond restraint. -Erik
There is nothing, I cannot do, if I choose. -Erik
Perfection, always perfection . . . nothing less would ever do in anything to which he set his mind. -Christine
My mind has touched the furthest horizons of mental imagination and reaches even outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowledge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand. And yet, like Faust, I look in vain, I learn in vain.....For as long as I live, no women will ever look on me in Love. -Erik
I wish I could hate him, but I couldn't. He was still my conscience. -Erik
I'm beginning to realize just how much of a child she really is, how terrifyingly immature and vulnerable . . . even unstable. There's a fatal flaw running though her like a crack in a Ming Dynasty vase, but that imperfection makes me love her with even greater tenderness. -Erik
Even in silence there was music in his hands, a cadence which seemed to flow irresistibly through his fingertips. -Christine
I hated broken promises and dishonored pledges; I hated going back on my word. Disappointment is such an exhausting emotion- all that energy dissipated first in painful hoping and then in futile, hopeless resentment. -Erik
I was alive, and I had never lived. Erik
Like a house with no foundations, unable to resist the first tremor of an earthquake, my existence had tumbled all around me to ruins. -Erik
Hell is not a place, its a state of mind and body, hell is obsession with a voice, a face, a name....-Erik
I was obsessed with Christine Daae, irretrievably and disgustingly fixated with the desire to possess which I knew I could not have. -Erik
I punished myself without mercy for the wickedness of wanting. But still I wanted her.... -Erik
I began to lie to myself, to cheat and deceive that other half that cried out that this could not be, this must not be. -Erik
But his voice is my inspiration and my reward. It lifts me from my earthly shell and carries me to the very edge of the universe, a wondrous flight of body and soul that leaves me utterly exhausted. -Christine
I am living in a dream. There is no reality, no existence, beyond those fleeting hours in which I teach her. The time between her lessons is a meaningless void, and the nights when she does not comes to the theater are one long, unending fever of anguished waiting. It seems to me that I do nothing but sit staring at the clock, willing time away, so that once more I may be close to her. So near, so near ....and yet so far away. -Erik
The calender tells me three months have passed, but they could be three seconds or three centuries for all the difference it makes. -Erik
At length I carried her through to the second bedroom and lay her down on my mother's bed, covering her tenderly with a shawl and watching the pale material slowly settle and cling to the outline of her form, enveloping her with the warmth and intimacy that I could never share. If its possible to be jealous of a shawl, then I was wickedly jealous. -Erik
Her head drooped lower and lower until it almost rested on my knee.... almost, but not quite. -Erik
To every tear that went down her cheek, I have shed hundreds. -Erik
I won't beg. Not even for your love. I have asked you to marry me, but I don't want your answer now. I would like you to come back tomorrow evening. Will you promise me to do that Christine, Will you promise to come back and tell me.....even if the answer is no. -Erik
Twenty four hours I had given her because I did not yet have the courage to face her answer without making a disgusting spectacle of my grief. -Erik
But, as I looked at the ring, I knew without question that I was going to have to find that courage and let her go with dignity. She did not love me, but respected me enough as a man - a human being - to honor me with a decency of a considered reply. And, I in my turn, must honor her decision. I would keep my pride, this time, no tears, no degrading groveling to make me burn with shame at the memory. Pride was all that I would be left with to sustain me through the ordeal of her refusal, pride would make me wish her well and let us part with civilized curtsy.....-Erik
Such a little thing really, a kiss .... most people don't give a moment's consideration. They kiss on meeting, they kiss on parting, that simple touching of flesh is taken entirely for granted as a basic human right. I have lived on this earth half a century without knowing what it is to be kissed ... and I'll never know now. -Erik
I'd totally dismantled this child... taken her to pieces in my crazed determination to make her heart tick in harmony with my own. I'd taught her to sing like one of God's angels, I'd loved her more than anything else upon this earth... but my love had destroyed her, reduced her to a pitiful creature barely aware of her own actions... made her as mad as I was myself. -Erik
He had given me the wings of an angel and taught me how to fly. -Christine
Slowly, hesitantly, as though fighting against the wavering instincts of a lifetime, he offered his gloved hand to help me ascend the carriage step. It was the first time he had ever directly invited physical contact from me and the moment was fraught with tense significance for us both. My fingers had only to close that little distance between us and I would be a child to him no longer.
In the moonlight his gloved hand was elusively normal; it looked warm and strong and quite curiously reassuring, the hand not of a monster and a murderer, but of a gentle, loving man, who waited with infinite patience for one little sign of hope . .-Christine
I want to build something beautiful... something in this world that he would have been proud of. There had to be a purpose in being in this world.... There has to be some purpose in living... -Erik
My voice was my only one beauty, my only one power, my only hope; my voice would open a magic pathway into her life.
I realized that his voice had become, for me, a drug as powerful as morphine, necessary to my senses, vital to my existence. His silence was a punishment beyond my strength to bear. -Christine
This nervous, anxious, well-meaning lady had taught me to respect all members of the weaker sex. She had dropped one pearl of purity into my soul, and even now, after all these years, it was still there, displacing a little of the dank, disgusting sludge of depravity. I had done many terrible things, but I had never harmed a helpless woman. -Erik
There's so much darkness in my head, sometimes it frightens me too... but it need not be like this, Christine. If I could just live like other men, walk through the Bois in daylight and feel the sun and wind upon my naked face... Oh Christine, I would be dare to do so many things if you were there beside me as my wife. -Erik
She was a lovely, wilting flower that I longed to rescue from the strangling creep of weeds. I wanted to plant her safely in the labyrinth beneath the Opera House, to hide her from the world so that no one else should ever find he, hurt her . . . take her away from me. I could make her grow . . . I knew I could make her grow . . . if only I dared to reach out and lift her from the barren, acrid soil that was stifling her natural talent. -Erik
Guilt, I thought, with a flicker of remorse for my heartlessness ... guilt is surely the saddest of all human emotions. But guilt is not love; it is a fire that consumes without giving warmth to those not embraced in its tangled coils. -Erik
He moved with a slow majesty, as though his whole body was informed by the rhythm of a music he alone could hear...-Christine
The thought of that white rose filled me with bitter shame... Yearning to turn and reach out to him, I remained unable to conquer that inner fear; it was a chasm I dared not cross. And so I sat there, like the little mouse in Aesop's fable, not daring to look upon the lion bound by cruel ropes. Chained by fate and shackled by pride, he starved in silent pain; and because I lacked the courage of a rose, I could not set him free. -Christine
Happiness is like the first blissful intoxication of morphine. It doesn't last very long. -Erik
I do not languish in his power like a pale prisoner, denied the light of day, but I grow ever upwards beneath the benevolent sun of his genius. Where once I was content to be a wilting marigold, I now aspire to the glorious height of a sunflower. He has captured all the wonders of the universe, enchanting baubles that reflect shafts of incandescent light. And like the child, starved of toys, I reach out eagerly with both hands, turning my back gladly on the world I left behind. -Christine
posted by Navjot Kashyap @ Tuesday, June 07, 2011
3 Comments:
I read carefully both your posts- the previous one- how you have made copied of the book, given it to one friend who lost it and your friend in Simla could not find it.
How you were so intrigued by the whole thing.
Now this post, where you have carefully jotted down each line.
I read each line very carefully now.
They make much more sense reading from your blog.
Amazing post.
navy, please tell blogger that ur gfc gadget is not working... i don't get ur feeds in my reader...
interesting post
Post a Comment
<< Home