Currently Reading :: Ecstasia
Currently on; page 94
The girl is floating above. Folding out from her thin, white back are wings. They are dusted with pollen like poppies. They have veiny eyes meant to terrify predators. The girl floats on these wings, always just out of reach.
L.A. in the future, the ocean is poison and only the young live in the city. The old (middle aged, really) go Underground to die. The young only go there for the magical drugs, which inevitably bring them to the Underground sooner for death.
The city itself, although dark and twisted, is entirely focused on beauty and fun. Citizens dance, eat, dress in glitter and gold and gems, and spend their lives in beauty.
Huge oval mirrors in frames of silver roses reflected the tapestry cushions and the urns holding bright candy, thick chalky sticks of burning incense or transparent silk blossoms.
I'd actually like to focus on this element more, about the beauty of the world around them. It's a somewhat negative aspect of the story, (People feel forced to go Underground because they don't want to be seen by the beautiful people as ugly) but it is still beautiful, and I love to read about it, wishing the world around me were so... dolled up. :)
Rafe followed Lily up some stairs to an apartment cluttered with things, a history of things. Some were what he would have expected- stuffed bears wearing tiny hats or wreaths of dried flowers, dolls with china teeth, glass eyes and braids of real hair, embroidered gloves, laces petticoats, fan-shaped perfume flasks, jars of powders and creams. But there were other things- a wedding dress, all lace, pearls, and yellowing satin roses hung from the ceiling, its train pooling on the floor. And then there were the flowers- stiff, white lilies carefully arranged on a coffin-like dresser, the tiny, white skeletons hanging on threads, the old one's rocking chair. The walls were a collage of floating watercolor faces, origami birds, bows, postcards, and photographs.
I wonder what its like to live in a world of beauty without any meaning or use. Art for the sake of art, right?As I read I want to continue to bring out all the dark beauty of their world.
There are many issues of love, for lovers, friends, and families. The characters suffer from lost loved ones, and some end up addicted to drugs that "bring back the dead" for short periods of time (whether this is literal or in their head is questionable, but both are possible in the context).
The relationships are beautiful, both heterosexual and homosexual, and the love and loss is commonly heartbreaking.
We fall together into the cold sand, suddenly warm and fine as if it were the dust of sun-baked pearls and we, plunging into each other's forbidden, impossibly lost, impossibly found, bodies, bring each other back and back and back.
Oh, btw, I think I'd be better at writing about these things if i had someone to talk to, answer, or bounce ideas with, so please don't hesitate to leave a comment, opinion, or question!!!
I have to admit that I haven't sat still to read all the posts, and have mostly scanned down the page looking at the pictures. They're beautifully taken and most of them are of wonderful looking food! I mean, my eye was immediately caught by shots of Cherry Blossom Doughnuts! You can't get more Primavera/Ecstasia than that! They look delicious (i'm way too lazy to ever try to make them...) and the photos themselves are amazing.
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