Book Club: The Emperor of Ocean Park

I take notes of interesting quotes I read in books for pleasure. I specifically said "for pleasure," because I didn't really engage the activity for books I read for classes. Thus, every month I hope to share approximately 7 interesting quotes/excerpts from the respective book that I finish. I have established this monthly theme, primarily, so as to sustain the book reading behavior I have recently took up, because as has been previously documented (see here), outside of sports watching and video games (what a life!) I am, on the whole, an undisciplined fellow. Besides, I am not expected to have an extensive attention span anyhow...

Personal Experience - Summarized: At just over 650 pages, my excitement and engagement in the book stemmed as much from the fact that I was actually finishing it (and I hardly ever read fiction) as it did from the book itself. (Yes, the book could have been streamlined by removing some of the narrator's repetitive thoughts.) That being said, I did enjoy the plot, albeit the beginning more so than the end, partly because of fatigue, but also because I enjoyed the style of writing where the most suspenseful part of the chapters was in the last paragraph or, in a number of cases, the last sentence (comma comma comma comma, comma) - it made me want to read the next chapter and the next, etc. But, it was a triumph for ya ol' boy - longest book I have ever read, cover to cover.

Below you will find 7 interesting quotes/excerpts from the book. Their inclusion does not necessarily mean I agree or disagree, promote or demote, or any other pro-con conjoined words...they simply were interesting to me:

• "I expect little from life other than mystery and ambiguity, so perhaps it is too much to demand of my feelings about my father that they come suddenly into crystalline focus." (My emphasis added.) (Pg. 615)
• "You cannot escape the consequences of your choices...Time runs in only one direction...None of us who are fathers are quite what we wanted to be for our sons." (Pg. 494)
• "Love is an activity, not a feeling--didn't one of the great theologians say that? Or maybe it was the Judge, who never ceased to stress duty rather than choice as the foundtaion of a civilized morality. I do not remember who coined the phrase, but I am beginning to understand what it means. True love is not the helpless desire to possess the cherished object of one's fervent affection; true love is the disciplined generosity we require of ourselves for the sake of another when we would rather be selfish; that, at least, is how I have taught myself to love my wife." (Pg. 215)
• "Two parents who actually love each other might be an interesting and radical beginning, but the mere suggestion that the traditional household might turn out to be good for children offends so many different constituencies that hardly anybody is willing to raise it any longer. Which further suggests, as George Orwell knew, that withing a generation or two nobody will think it either. What survives is only what we are able to communicate. Moral knowledge that remains secret eventually ceases to be knowledge. Although it may still be moral." (Pg. 228)
• "And maybe, from time to time, the Court has done justice, but a good deal less than most people seem to assume, for it has been, for most of its history, a follower, not an agent, of change." (Pg. 239) (Shoutouts to G. X. Duncan's Politics of Education class.)
• "Depression is seductive: it offends and teases, frighten you and draws you in, tempting you with its promise of sweet oblivion, then overwhelming you with a nearly sexual power, squirming past your defenses, dissolving your will, invading the tired spirit so utterly that it becomes difficult to recall that you ever lived without it...or to imagine that you might live that way again. With all the guile of Satan himself, depression persuades you that its invasion was all your own idea, that you wanted it all along. It fogs the part of the brain that reasons, that knows right and wrong. It captures you with its warm, guilt, hateful pleasures, and, worst of all, it becomes familiar. All at once, you find yourself in thrall to the very thing that most terrifies you. Your work slides, your friendships slide, your marriage slides, but you scarcely notice: to be depressed is to be half in love with disaster." (Pg. 152)
• "When my father finally died, he left the Redskins tickets to my brother, the house on Shephard Street to my sister, and the house on the Vineyard to me. The football tickets, of course, were the most valuable item in the estate..." (First sentence in the book.) (I am the owner of 4 Redskin season tickets, amen.)

The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter

Likely Next Up: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (who else?)