shootingstar
Member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2022
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- German
- Home Country
- Germany
- Current Location
- Germany
She (Nora) pictured her father's face, . . . on a drizzle-scratched Sunday . . . as she told him (her father) she didn't want to swim in competitions any more. That look of disappointment and profound frustration.
'But you could make a success of your life,' he had said. . . . 'You're never going to be a pop star, but this is something real. It's right in front of you. If you keep training, you'll end up at the Olympics, I know it.'
She had been cross with him saying that. As if there was a very thin path to a happy life and it was the path he had decided for her. As if her own agency in her own life was automatically wrong. But what she didn't fully appreciated at fifteen years of age was just how bad regret could feel, and how much her father had felt that pain of being so near to the realisation of a dream he could almost touch it.
Nora's father, it was true, had been a difficult man.
As well as being highly critical of everything Nora did, and everything Nora wanted, and everything Nora believed, unless it was related to swimming, Nora had also felt that simply to be in his presence was commit some kind of invisible crime. Ever since the ligament injury that thwarted his rugby career, he'd had a sincere conviction that the universe was against him ...
(The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, episode Fish Tank)
What is the shared intersection or common touchpoint of the first and the last part of the underlined sentence "As well as being highly critical of everything Nora did, and evrything Nora wanted and everything Nora believed, unless it was related to swimming, Nora had also felt that simply to be in his presence was to commit some kind of invisible crime"?
'But you could make a success of your life,' he had said. . . . 'You're never going to be a pop star, but this is something real. It's right in front of you. If you keep training, you'll end up at the Olympics, I know it.'
She had been cross with him saying that. As if there was a very thin path to a happy life and it was the path he had decided for her. As if her own agency in her own life was automatically wrong. But what she didn't fully appreciated at fifteen years of age was just how bad regret could feel, and how much her father had felt that pain of being so near to the realisation of a dream he could almost touch it.
Nora's father, it was true, had been a difficult man.
As well as being highly critical of everything Nora did, and everything Nora wanted, and everything Nora believed, unless it was related to swimming, Nora had also felt that simply to be in his presence was commit some kind of invisible crime. Ever since the ligament injury that thwarted his rugby career, he'd had a sincere conviction that the universe was against him ...
(The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, episode Fish Tank)
What is the shared intersection or common touchpoint of the first and the last part of the underlined sentence "As well as being highly critical of everything Nora did, and evrything Nora wanted and everything Nora believed, unless it was related to swimming, Nora had also felt that simply to be in his presence was to commit some kind of invisible crime"?
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