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Alphonse Daudet, In the Land of Pain. Edited and translated by Julian Barnes.

Ja, ein 'richtiges' Buch, d.h. kein E-Book - hauptsächlich weil ich es mir bestellt hatte, bevor ich mir den Paperwhite zulegte und die Bestellung nachträglich nicht mehr ändern wollte. Vielleicht hätte es in elektronischer Form auch nicht die gleiche Wirkung wie das schmale, fast verletzlich wirkende Bändchen von verstreuten, an Tagebuchaufzeichnungen erinnernde Notizen von Daudet über seine Leidensgeschichte in den Jahren vor seinem Tod, denen Julian Barnes hier einen Rahmen und Hintergrund gibt, und dadurch das Buch zu einer Biografie macht. Eine kurze, aber darum nicht weniger bewegende und anrührende, genau wie die Notizen sehr kurz, aber oh so treffend und nahegehend bei allem bitteren Humor.

Are words actually any use to describe what pain (or passion, for that matter) really feels like? Words only come when everything is over, when things have calmed down. They refer only to memory, and are either powerless or untruthful.
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Pain, you must be everything for me. Let me find in you all those foreign lands you will not let me visit. Be my philosophy, be my science.
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The Russian, who can't move his arms and has a servant to roll cigarettes for him. They have a row: the servant has to make furious gestures for both of them.
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Our pain is always new to us, but becomes quite familiar to those around us. It soon wears out its welcome, even for those who love us the most. Compassion loses its edge. Even if I didn't try to keep my suffering to myself out of concern for others, I would do so out of pride: I don't want to read weariness and boredom in the eyes of those dearest to me.
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(Alphonse Daudet, Doulou/In the Land of Pain, edited and translated by Julian Barnes, 2002)