Sometimes it's just silent...No sound at all. 'Does that scare you?' Chad nods. 'Why?' asks his father. 'It's like something's waiting.
Mark Z. DanielewskiTo read" actually comes from the Latin reri "to calculate, to think" which is not only the progenitor of "read" but of "reason" as well, both of which hail from the Greek arariskein "to fit." Aside from giving us "reason," arariskein also gives us an unlikely sibling, Latin arma meaning "weapons." It seems that "to fit" the world or to make sense of it requires either reason or arms.
Mark Z. DanielewskiBecause the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both brothers learned to identify with absence. Consequently, even if something beneficial fortuitously entered their lives they immediately treated it as temporary. By the time they were teenagers they were already accustomed to a discontinuous lifestyle marked by constant threats of abandonment and the lack of any emotional stability. Unfortunately, "accustomed to" here is really synonymous with "damaged by.
Mark Z. DanielewskiMy interest is in how meaning is communicated via language, and I believe the shape, positioning, even the color of the language has an effect on meaning.
Mark Z. DanielewskiBack on shore everyone was pretty messed up, but the owner/captain was by far the worst off. He ended up drunk for a week, though the only thing he ever said was "So?" The boat's gone. "So?" Your mate's dead. "So?" Hey at least you're alive. "So?" An awful word but it does harden you. It hardened me.
Mark Z. Danielewski