Present Imperfect

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

“It was somehow clear, even then, that the monster had been lonely. The folds above its eye made the old face look wistful, and it emanated such a strong sense of solitude that each human standing in the park that day felt miles from the others, though we were shoulder-to-shoulder, touching. Later, we would hear that when the divers couldn’t reach the bottom of our lake, they called in deep-sea pods to search for another beast like the one that surfaced that day. We would hear that, scour as they might, they couldn’t find another beast like ours, only detritus: rusted tractors and plastic buoys, and even an antique phonograph. They found a yellow-painted phaeton in its entirety, the bones of a small spaniel inside. They also found dozens of human skeletons, drowned or dumped corpses, arranged side-by-side in some trick of current or metaphysics, on a shallow shelf near Kingfisher Tower, beside Judith’s Point.” Read more...

The Accidental by Ali Smith

“She looks at the way the sun comes through the leaves above her head i.e. the story of Icarus who had the wings his father made which the sun melted when he flew too close. She wonders what the difference would have been if the father had made the wings for a girl instead, who maybe would have known how to use them properly. But probably this would depend on how old the girl was, because if she was Astrid’s age it would be okay. But if she was any younger it would be dangerous, she would be too young, and if she was any older she would be worrying about people seeing up her skirt and the sun melting her eye make-up.” Read more...

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

“But it wasn’t just our jobs at stake, was it? When we had trouble nailing an ad, our reputations were on the line. A good deal of our self-esteem was predicated on the belief that we were good marketers, that we understood what made the world tick — that in fact, we told the world how to tick. We got it, we got it better than others, we got it so well we could teach it to them. Using a wide variety of media, we could demonstrate for our fellow Americans their anxieties, desires, insufficiencies, and frustrations — and how to assuage them all. We informed you in six seconds that you needed something you didn’t know you lacked. We made you want anything that anyone willing to pay us wanted you to want. We were hired guns of the human soul. We pulled the strings on the people across the land and by god they got to their feet and they danced for us.” Read more...

Perfume by Patrick Süskind

“Grenouille was terrified. What happens, he thought, if the scent, once I possess it...what happens if it runs out? It’s not the same as it is in your memory, where all scents are indestructible. The real thing gets used up in this world. It’s transient. And by the time it has been used up, the source I took it from will no longer exist. And I will be as naked as before and will have to get along with surrogates, just like before. No, it will be even worse than before! For in the meantime I will have known it and possessed it, my own splendid scent, and I will not be able to forget it, because I never forget a scent. And for the rest of my life I will feed on it in my memory, just as I was feeding right now from the premonition of what I will possess...What do I need it for at all?” Read more...

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott

“‘They discovered that when two subatomic particles — that’s photons, electrons, or qubits — collide or interact and then move apart, they retain a kind of connection even if they’re at they’re at opposite ends of the universe. They have become entangled...If moments in time become entangled in the same way that photons become entangled, then there might be strange connections between the past and the present, moments in time acting in the same way, like the particles; one moment turns one way, the other follows — shadowing. And that’s mind-blowing. See, I’m a rationalist who believes in a supernatural world, because I live in it. Science doesn’t reduce things, or explain mysteries away; it just discovers stranger and stranger things.’” Read more...