"only from the outside, from the street, do i hear something like the roiling of water in which there are a great many fish packed in so tightly they keep bumping together and the water is bubbling and seething with fish and brown from the mud stirred up by them, the water keeps rearing up in countless silvery bodies as if the water itself were a body nipping at itself and breathing with a thousand wide-open mouths, and in this way, i assume, it is making this sound i have never before heard, that today is striking our house from the outside."

~   jenny erpenbeck, the book of words
jenny erpenbeckthe book of wordsgermantranslationwaterfishseethingsoundoceanbody of waterthousandsfear
17th Aug 2010✧22:09

"my father takes me on his lap. he rocks me back and forth, softly singing the song of our homeland, a song in a minor key, my and my father’s song, we often sit together like this, but while he is really singing, i release my breath only on certain notes, as the desire strike me, very softly…this too pleases him and me. i sing him my notes quietly against his skin from the outside, into his throat, while at the same time i am listening through his shirt and shoulder to the blood circulating inside my father. again."

~   jenny erpenbeck, the book of words
jenny erpenbeckthe book of wordsgermantranslationfatherdaughterrockingsinginglullabyone
17th Aug 2010✧22:06

"my grandfather seems to be staring right through the wall of the church and grinding something massive with his iron jaws, perhaps he’s clearing land in his thoughts."

~   jenny erpenbeck, the book of words
the book of wordsjenny erpenbeckgermantranslationnaivegrandfatherclearinggrinding
17th Aug 2010✧22:03

"and then all the horses ran over my mother. with their hooves. my mother was an indian, anna says to me. i don’t say anything. she climbed over the fence to feed her horses, she says, and then he very own horses trampled her to death. just imagine, anna says to me. i imagine this, and then say to my friend: i think that’s a good way for an indian to die. i think so too, anna says."

~   jenny erpenbeck, the book of words
jenny erpenbeckthe book of wordsbookquotehorsesindianfriendtrampledchildrentranslationgerman
16th Aug 2010✧10:30

"my father says these words behind a closed door in our house, at the time the door still looks huge to me, i imagine what would happen if it were to fall on me while i am pressed against it, listening, wonder whether i’d be crushes flat, through the door the smell of tobacco is filtering into the hall- everyone- and whether it would make a noise when it fell on me, or whether a door like that falls quietly upon a body made of flesh."

~   jenny erpenbeck, the book of words
bookgermanjenny erpenbeckthe book of wordstranslationdoorfleshcrushed
16th Aug 2010✧10:24
Opaque  by  andbamnan