Benjamin Kunkel Quote
It was like when I’d taken a trip to some foreign land and everyone asked about it when I got back: my accounts would grow similar, focusing on this impression, that cool place, a certain funny anecdote, until there was just the one account which then substituted for my memory. Remembering this tendency, I felt an honest fear. It was the familiar fear, made honest through sudden intensity, that once all the sensation had evaporated from my life the residue would be a cliché. I’d die, St. Peter would be like, So how was it? and I’d say, Great place. I liked the food. I was sick for part of it. But all the people were really nice. And that would be it.
It was like when I’d taken a trip to some foreign land and everyone asked about it when I got back: my accounts would grow similar, focusing on this impression, that cool place, a certain funny anecdote, until there was just the one account which then substituted for my memory. Remembering this tendency, I felt an honest fear. It was the familiar fear, made honest through sudden intensity, that once all the sensation had evaporated from my life the residue would be a cliché. I’d die, St. Peter would be like, So how was it? and I’d say, Great place. I liked the food. I was sick for part of it. But all the people were really nice. And that would be it.
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About Benjamin Kunkel
He co-founded and is a co-editor of the journal n+1.
His novel Indecision was published in 2005; and Utopia or Bust: A Guide to the Present Crisis, and Buzz: A Play & My Predicament: A Story, were published in 2014.