The Dangerous Yearning
There’s a saying: some books don’t end, they just live in you forever.
Do you ever feel that? A piece of writing from a stranger, from people in the past, from events that happened far away, can somehow fulfill you.
I just finished The Goldfinch, a novel by Donna Tartt.
It was an impulsive buy. I didn’t think twice before paying for the book. I just read a short review from someone on the internet and, I was sold. I had no big expectations. I just wanted something to read at the time. But reading this, it went beyond anything I imagined.
This book reminded me of grief and longing I hadn’t realized were still with me. How did I feel when my mother passed away when I was a kid? How did I feel growing up, carrying the loss of several core people in my life? How did I feel when I went through heartbreak?
Grief, by some people, always seemed like it would push you toward some kind of hopeful closure. But in reality, it only leads you deeper into the feeling of absence. Every single day, for the rest of your life, they drift you further away.
Every new event, everything I did for the rest of my life, would only seperate us more and more.
That’s what Theo, the main character in The Goldfinch, expressed after he lost his mother in a museum bombing. And when I read that line, it slap me, how did I not realize until now that my mother and I no longer share a space? I almost forgot what her absence felt like. I’ve been living properly. And when I thought about it, I felt guilty.
But maybe that’s what they , the dead, would want, right? To live. Just like in Drive My Car, where Haruki Murakami wrote that those who live must keep on living. What else can we do, anyway?
But grief isn’t the only thing that stays. There’s also longing, quiet, constant, often unexplainable.
In The Goldfinch, Theo said that his longing for Pippa was like a bad cold that hung on for years. My day was ruined when I read that chapter. I felt Theo’s longing how weak, helpless, and bitter he was.
I was transfixed with an urge amounting almost delirium: for to have it only a handbreadth away again, after so long, was to find myself suddenly on the edge of dangerous, yearning edge I hadn’t even known was there.
Donna Tartt is insane for writing this. Like, what do you mean I’m reading this twelve years after the book was first released, crouched on my bed, frowning, holding back tears? What kind of sorcery is that?
He berated himself for not being more forceful with her. That line opened up a whole universe in my head. A universe where Theo Decker lives in the same timeline as Tsukuru Tazaki from Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. Both Theo and Tsukuru live in that quiet, haunted space of “what-ifs.” They survive, and maybe that’s the most honest kind of longing.
Am I a weird person for loving the complex meaning of longing? To me, longing is a beautiful and honest feeling. Yes, it hurts in some shape, but it also reminds you that there’s still a soft spot in your heart. That you’re still capable of feeling deeply.
For me, longing doesn’t come from pain, it’s not born from heartbreak or tragedy either. Longing, I believe, comes from beauty. From memories that meant something. From moments that were so full, they echo long after they’ve passed.
At least for me — how could I ever long for something I hated? How could I miss something that hurt me?
So, that’s it. Donna Tartt reminded me that grief and longing aren’t wounds. They are the shadows of something once whole and still beautiful.
