People often say the English are very cold fish, very reserved, that they have a way of looking at things - even tragedy - with a sense of irony. Theres some truth in it; its pretty stupid, though. Irony wont save you from anything; humor won’t do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, even decades; there are people who seem to go though most of their lives seeing the funny side, but on the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humour, you still end up with your heart broken. Thats when you stop laughing. After that theres just the cold, the silence, and the loneliness. You might say, after that, there’s only death.

A very depressing but seemingly quite precient book. Taking a critical look at indavidualised culture through some very extreme examples of people who were very much fucked up basically just because of an absentee mother. I guess it mostly took the idea of hedonism and personal pleasure to be that of sex and sexual pleasure. Maybe thats the case in France. In the book its all Bruno can think about, and micheals lack of it is sort of responsible for a lot of his woes in modern life.

It is hard for me to see the point this book is making, like was society before hippies so great? And even so communal? The author seems to think that living for others is the most Nobel thing, and I suppose in some ways it kindof is the ideal life. I dont really know though.

Its such a French book. At least it solidifies a lot of the reasons not to become a hippie. They do worship a very unclear God. One made of young flesh and simple pleasures that can work when yourl’re young but not when you’re old.

I can’t remeber where I saw it but Tue quote about all you need to be happy is a family, nature and people with simple needs that you can help. To be needed is a great thing, and not something hippies take into account so much I guess. I dont know. Glad I read the book though.