Excerpt from "A Mother's Tale" by James Agee

I wanted the first thing I posted here to be something really good. I was reading a short story earlier by James Agee called "A Mother's Tale," and I really, really loved this passage. I won't ruin by telling you what the story is actually about, but I'll probably try to read more of his stuff.
 
“They were fed and watered so generously, and treated so well, and the majesty and the loveliness of this place where they had all come to rest was so far beyond anything they had ever known or dreamed of, that many of the simple and ignorant, whose memories were short, began to wonder whether that whole difficult journey, or even their whole lives up to now, had ever really been. Hadn’t it all been just shadows, they murmured, just a bad dream?

“Even the sharp ones, who knew very well it had all really happened, began to figure that everything up to now had been made so full of pain only so that all they had come to now might seem all the sweeter and the more glorious. Some of the oldest and deepest were even of a mind that all the puzzle and tribulation of the journey had been sent us as a kind of harsh trying or proving of our worthiness; and that it was entirely fitting and proper that we could earn our way through to such rewards as these, only through suffering, and through being patient under pain which was beyond our understanding; and that now at the last, to those who had borne all things well, all things were made known: for the mystery of suffering stood revealed in joy.”


Damn, son. That be some good writin'. I'm reading a book called I Found This Funny, which is a collection of short stories compiled by Judd Apatow. This was only the first story. If the rest is a good as this, I think I'm going to like this.

And, yes, David Sedaris is in it too.