65 pages • 2 hours read
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
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Important Quotes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death by suicide, death, mental illness, graphic violence, and cursing.
“‘The world is ending,’ she said. ‘[…] The world is ending and we cannot prevent it. So now it’s up to you.’
I found that Thai was the only language which wanted to pass my lips in any coherent form, and the only word which I seemed capable of forming was, why?
Not, I hasten to add, why was the world ending?
Why did it matter?
She smiled, and understood my meaning without needing it to be said. She leaned in close and murmured in my ear, ‘The world is ending, as it always must. But the end of the world is getting faster.’”
(Chapter 1, Page 2)
This exchange establishes the novel’s central conflict and introduces the motif of messages through time. The girl’s message is presented as a paradox: an unpreventable end that the protagonist is nonetheless tasked with addressing. Harry’s internal monologue, questioning why the end matters rather than why it is happening, reveals the profound existential weariness of a being who lives in endless cycles, a key aspect of The Relationship Between Memory and Personal Identity. The final line, delivered as a whispered secret, creates a sense of urgency and mystery that propels the narrative forward.
“It is said that there are three stages of life for those of us who live our lives in circles. These are rejection, exploration and acceptance. […]
Rejection, for example, can be subdivided into various clichéd reactions, like so: suicide, despondency, madness, hysteria, isolation and self-destruction. I, like nearly all kalachakra, experienced most of these at some stage in my early lives, and their recollection lingers within me like a virus still twisted into my stomach wall.”
(Chapter 3, Page 7)
Here, Harry uses a detached, almost academic tone to classify the immense trauma of his early lives, a narrative choice that underscores his attempt to rationalize an unbearable reality: His classification structures the psychological journey of the kalachakra, transforming personal agony into a systematic process. The simile comparing these recollections to “a virus still twisted into [his] stomach wall” conveys the permanent, internal damage caused by memory, suggesting that identity is not just built but also scarred by past experiences.
