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3.5
Lots of good quotes in this book, here are some of my favorites:

"I do what is mine to do; the rest doesn't disturb me."

"Wait for it patiently - annihilation or metamorphosis."

"Close to fogetting it all, close to being forgotten."

"None of us have much time. And yet you act as if things were eternal - the day you fear and long for them..."

"Bear in mind that everything that exists is already fraying at the edges, and in transition, subject to fragmentation and to rot."

"That to be remembered is worthless. Like fame. Like everything."

"Think about your life: childhood, boyhood, youth, old age. Every transformation a kind of dying. Was that so terrible?"

"Fear of death is fear of what we may experience. Nothing at all, or something quite new, but if we experience nothing, we can experience nothing bad. And if our experience changes, then our existence will change with it - change, but not cease."

"People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations to Come will be the same annoying people they know now."

"Close to forgetting it all, close to being forgotten."

This was the second time I read this book, this time in its original language...
I loved this book back when I was a teenager (gave it 5 stars!), I thought it was great, like everything Fitzgerald had written (I was a huge fan back then, I still feel quite a lot for his stories today), but this time around, at my 25 years of age, I found it boring most of the time, I found Amory dull, I couldn't see the charm I found all those years ago, it was just gone. This is why re reading favorite books is a risk but to see that I've changed in such a drastic way is kind of... relieving? Maybe that's the word, I am not sure.

But one thing I am sure of is that I still love very much Amory's final line and I couldn't feel more identified with it, even today.

This was a beautifully written book and I absolutely fell in love with Aldo, the mathematician, more than anyone else in this book.
I generally do not read love stories featuring straight couples since well, being queer myself I just can't help but find most of these typical pairings rather bland and repetitive but I was surprised by this one in particular. Maybe it's because stories with mentally ill people just tend to make things less conventional and therefore a lot more compelling, maybe I just liked the characters, maybe it was just good writing, maybe it was just good, idk.

What I know is that these type of relationships are bound to failure and being the most sane one in the couple always takes too big of a toll to make it worth it in the long run and I do wonder if things would truly be okay in real life. Maybe they would and maybe some people can make it work and maybe some people need to take care of others in an obsessive kind of way and some others need to be taken care of in the same manner... maybe it works. idk. just because things don't always work does not mean they never do. maybe.

anyway, too much rambling because of similarities and cycles and there are no perfect circles, are there? that's kind of a relief, really. now i want to get into math a bit more than i did before because time and hexagonal shapes and, really, the bees.
yes. let's talk about the bees.