Slow Life | 4 April 2009

A marshmallow completely failed to live up to its promise yesterday. It’s a good while since I tasted a marshmallow and I was convinced it was going to be gorgeous. Inevitable, I suppose, one’s changing tastes, but somehow it always comes as a surprise when I find I don’t like things any more. Recently, certain books that I loved when I was younger: books that I once set my compasses by, I find repellent. There was a time in my life when everything Camus wrote came over as the voice of God speaking the divine language, such a mature way of looking at the world. Now it all strikes me as moody, childish, provincial and very short on laughs. Whole cities, I’ve tired of. Berlin, for example: how tedious. Entire nations, too: Iceland, where briefly I was happiest, I don’t think I could ever return to with a light heart.