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256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
The fact is that The Novel of the Short-Sighted Adolescent will be a series of vignettes, impressions, portraits, conclusions about school life and the adolescent soul. This might seem dull and analytical; particularly the word ‘conclusions’.
All my friends tell me that they’ve wanted to run away as well. But in my case, running away isn’t just a passing desire for adventure, or a childish capitulation to the drudgery of school. I have to run away because of an inner necessity that I don’t understand, but which has seized control of my will. Otherwise I feel that it will tear my soul apart, that I’ll suffocate. I feel the need to live the way I want, to struggle.
But I know that everything I’ve written up till now can’t be true. I know there is such a thing as a single soul, and that it is reflected in thousands of fleeting viewpoints. That behind every consciousness lies this single soul. That there are many times when strange states of consciousness slip through, but they are temporary, and can be set aside by the simplest self-examination.
So I sense that within me there exists a single soul. But how do I go about reaching it? The task seems so impossible that it fills me with dread.