Louise Penny (Chief Inspector Gamache #14): Kingdom of the Blind (2)

魁北克冬季嘉年華

又到quotation時間！

－“What I was going to say is that my mentor had this theory that our lives are like an aboriginal longhouse. Just one huge room.” He swept one arm out to illustrate scope. “He said that if we thought we could compartmentalize things, we were deluding ourselves. Everyone we meet, every word we speak, every action taken or not taken lives in our longhouse. With us. Always. Never to be expelled or locked away.”

......He said, ‘Be very, very careful who you let into your life. And learn to make peace with whatever happens. You can’t erase the past. It’s trapped in there with you. But you can make peace with it. If you don’t,’ he said, ‘you’ll be at perpetual war.’”



And in his longhouse, as he glanced back down it now, he saw all the young agents, all the men and women, boys and girls, whose lives he’d affected. He could also see, standing there, the people who’d hurt him. Badly. Almost killed him. They all lived there.

And while he would never be friends with many of those memories, those ghosts, he had worked very hard to make peace with them. With what he’d done and what had been done to him.

這個人生的比喻令我印象深刻。發生過的事就是發生過，我們要學會與過去的自己共存。

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do,
They tuck you up, your mum and dad,’” said the young man, reeling it off easily. “‘They read you Peter Rabbit, too.’” All around the hearth, eyebrows rose. “‘They fill you with the faults they had,’” said Ruth, squaring herself to Benedict, like a duelist.
They give you all the treats they had,’” he replied. “‘And add some extra, just for you.’”

“Man hands on happiness to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. So love your parents all you can, And have some cheerful kids yourself.”被作者改為︰
“Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.”
想笑，又笑不出。

That wasn’t exactly what he was thinking. A will, an estate, could become about more than money, property, possessions. Who was left the most could be interpreted as who was loved the most. There were different sorts of greed. Of need.
父母到底愛哪個子女多些，很多子女一世都會介意。

“I forget their names, patron,” she whispered. “My own children.” It was no use telling her he understood. Or that it was all right. She’d earned the right to no easy answer.
有時候，若不懂怎樣安慰別人的話，還不如不說話。

Beauvoir knew that almost everyone did four things, when faced with modern technology. First they created passwords. Then they forgot them. Then, on being forced to create new ones, they simplified and went with only one, which opened everything. And then they wrote it down. And hid that paper somewhere.

哈哈！

And he could relax. Knowing for the next number of hours, as the blizzard howled, the world was on hold. Frozen in place. In the hectic, often frantic pace of life, there was something deeply peaceful about not being able to do anything. No Internet, no phone, no TV. No lights. Life became simple, primal: Heat. Water. Food. Companionship.
加拿大某些地方，會冷得將世界凝結。人們反而會因此得享安寧。

－He invited Justin Trudeau every year. And never heard back.
三松村是虛構的，杜魯多卻是真實存在的。作者用他開了個無傷大雅的玩笑

－“Things are strongest where they’re broken,” said Lacoste. “Agent Morin said that.”
這應該是作者自己也很喜歡的一句quote

－The sense of calm that came from the man behind the desk. It was unusual. Most senior officers Beauvoir knew gave off a “fuck you” energy. Something Agent Beauvoir had learned to copy.
Beauvoir對Gamache的第一印象

－She’d arrived at the restaurant frozen through and bushed. But it was the most fun she’d had in months. Since the shooting. She’d been afraid she’d be sidelined forever. Treated by well-meaning colleagues as a charity case. Someone to be patronized, coddled, pitied. And finally ignored.
沒人想自己變成廢人。任何人也需要成就感。

－They’d already established that Caroline was a real-estate agent. Successful, she said. In the top five percent. They’d later learn that was true. After a fashion. Top five percent in her company, in her area. Who specialized in condos. For young families. Which put her in the bottom five percent of agents in Québec.
加拿大的房價升得很厲害。

－Being called to a murder scene, or even being assigned to search a victim’s home, was not simply foreign to her. She felt, at the age of forty-eight, as though she were experiencing an alien abduction.
人到中年才被調到重案組的，不知Agent Cloutier會否適應？感覺這角色還會再出現。

－They were no longer brother and sister. They were barely of the same species.
－Jean-Guy could feel a headache coming on. The distant throbbing at the base of his skull. Like heartbeats at the birth of dark thoughts.
純粹喜歡作者的用字

－Who hurt you once so far beyond repair / That you would greet each overture with curling lip.’”
這句也是作者喜歡的quote。


Beauvoirh與疑犯舌劍唇槍︰
－I’m saying most people don’t have the luxury to pick and choose. They’re just trying to make it through the day. Taking whatever shitty job they can. Trying to hold the family together. Maybe in a shitty marriage with kids who’re out of control. You live in a world of choice, Madame Ogilvy. Most don’t have investments. They have lives. And they’re just trying to get by.”

－“It’s a feeling,” he said. “How did you feel about Anthony Baumgartner?” “He was nice—” “Puppies are nice. What was he? How did you feel about him?”

－Her smile was thin. Her eyes cold. This was not a young woman. This was the senior partner in a multibillion-dollar investment firm. Who didn’t get the job because she was the CEO’s daughter but because she could do just this. Absorb information quickly. Break it down. See the implications and options. And not hide from reality, no matter how unpleasant. They were skills that would have served her well in any business. Including his.