"These extraits de memoire, just like what inspired them, are non-linear. Sometimes brutal, sometimes uplifting, always evocative and seen through a clouded glass. Please take your time understanding them! I recommend re-visiting the sights and sounds of these memories, together with the smells, to fully remember. No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
