Simone de Beauvoir, The Art of Fiction No. 35 (1965)

“In Plato, art is mystification because there is the heaven of Ideas; but in the earthly domain all glorification of the earth is true as soon as it is realized. Let men attach value to words, forms, colors, mathematical theorems, physical laws, and athletic prowess; let them accord value to one another in love and friendship, and the objects, the events, and the men immediately have this value; they have it absolutely. It is possible that a man may refuse to love anything on earth; he will prove this refusal and he will carry it out by suicide. If he lives, the reason is that, whatever he may say, there still remains in him some attachment to existence; his life will be commensurate with this attachment; it will justify itself to the extent that it genuinely justifies the world.”

Excerpt From: Simone de Beauvoir. “The Ethics of Ambiguity.

Another word for Beauvoir's "swindle" is simply "dis-illusionment", isn't it? Life as we experience it is based on "stories" we read and hear and expect that at some point we would live like in a story and thus feel some deep significance to our life. But it never is like that. For some the story might be Beauvoir and she is honest enough to tell us that. Nothing special here. My (her) situation is like yours. But isn't that really the great unifier? We are all special, or none of us is.

The ending of a book makes the book timeless. The story is over but the story still exists and perhaps we long for that kind of existence? But reality is reality? No, the limits of our language are the limits of the world. (Wittgenstein I think).

> Shelves are crammed with surprisingly uninteresting books. “The best ones,” she told me, “are in the hands of my friends and never come back.”

I love her attitude. I do the same. If I have a really good book, I try to pass it on as quickly as possible. That also increases the chances of finding someone to debate the contents, which is usually where the real fun starts.

Works much better with physical books actually. You'd think it'd be easier with epub or such, but nope. Somehow the physical artifact really makes people want to read it much more, being given a physical book seems to convey much more that you're receiving something of value, something worth investing some (or many!) hours into.