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The Last Life

by Claire Messud · 1999

Claire Messud's piercing second novel asks questions most are too fearful to face. Moving between the South of France, the East Coast of the U.S., and Algeria, The Last Life explores the weight of isolation and exile in one… more

5 quotes ★ 3.55 (2,006) Fiction

Quotes from the Book

The whole world seemed a maze of shifting mirrors in which I wandered alone, looking always and frenziedly for the exit back into my real life, where people had substance, did as they said they would, and were whole.
4
I don't want to sleep,' my mother said. 'I want -- for God's sake, I want to wake up.
3
It is a terrible thing to be free. Nations know this; churches know this. People, however, seek to skirt the knowledge,. They elevate freedom to a holy grail, disregarding the truth that constraints are what define us, in life and in language alike; we yearn to be sentenced.
We don't choose what we believe, or don't believe..and if we do, we'er fooling ourselves. If choice is illusory, the aim must be to keep the illusion intact.
Left, right—the politics don’t matter. It’s chaos, it’s entropy, and anyone with any wit should keep away. But the FN’s not the problem. People who think it is are misguided. It’s just a symptom of the problem. Of the problems. Plural. The problems that this nation faces, overrun with immigrants—Arabs, Africans, the English-speakers, all of them—our culture assailed on all sides. Our children, for God’s sake, building bombs for no reason! And our government—this decrepit, farcical liar who fancies himself emperor—our government has nothing to say about it, nothing at all!

About Claire Messud

We have collected 34 quotes from 2 books by Claire Messud on BookQuoters.

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About the book

Claire Messud's piercing second novel asks questions most are too fearful to face. Moving between the South of France, the East Coast of the U.S., and Algeria, The Last Life explores the weight of isolation and exile in one French family. Of course, the adjective French is already inadequate, as at least some of the LaBasses still long for the paradise lost of Algeria. And Alex LaBasse's wife, Carol, try as she might with her Continental impersonations, will always be an American sporting a metaphorical twin set. The narrator, Sagesse, too, soon finds herself equally stranded. Only her autocratic grandfather, Jacques, is ostensibly comfortable with the identity he has wrought: successful owner of the Bellevue Hotel and head of his dynasty. It is thanks to this man that 14-year-old Sagesse comes to crave invisibility. Having lost all of her friends, she sees herself as "a member of the Wi

Book details

First published
1999
Genre
Fiction
Goodreads rating
3.55 (2k ratings)

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