The Pleasure That Starts Life

The Character of Rain

This flow follows pleasure from the first taste of White Chocolate to the Narrator (God)'s evolving defense of sensual experience.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

A World Without Want A World Without Want from "The Character of Rain". A World Without Want Complete indifference Before awakening, the child neither seeks nor rejects anything.

A World Without Want from "The Character of Rain". A World Without Want Complete indifference Before awakening, the child neither seeks nor rejects anything.

A World Without Want Complete indifference Before awakening, the child neither seeks nor rejects anything. Its body accepts routine nourishment without distinguishing one experience from another. An existence without appetite The account makes this condition a form of fullness that contains no particular desire. Without preference, the child has no route into pleasure or active life.

The First Delight The First Delight from "The Character of Rain". The First Delight White Chocolate arrives Grandmother gives the enraged child a piece of White Chocolate.

The First Delight from "The Character of Rain". The First Delight White Chocolate arrives Grandmother gives the enraged child a piece of White Chocolate.

The First Delight White Chocolate arrives Grandmother gives the enraged child a piece of White Chocolate. Its unfamiliar taste changes an encounter with food into a startling experience of pleasure. Pleasure names the self An inward voice emerges and claims both the delight and the body that feels it. The Narrator (God) discovers that pleasure can make an otherwise empty world personally meaningful.

The World Worth Entering The World Worth Entering from "The Character of Rain". The World Worth Entering Appetite as invitation The child sees that ordinary meals are dull beside the pleasure that first awakened it.

The World Worth Entering from "The Character of Rain". The World Worth Entering Appetite as invitation The child sees that ordinary meals are dull beside the pleasure that first awakened it.

The World Worth Entering Appetite as invitation The child sees that ordinary meals are dull beside the pleasure that first awakened it. Food becomes the clearest route by which a young person can experience the world as worth inhabiting. Against self-denial The adult narrator argues that pleasure can enlarge attention and thought. Denying every delight, by contrast, risks making deprivation its own impoverished reward.

The Price of Feeding The Price of Feeding from "The Character of Rain". The Price of Feeding A daily obligation The child must feed three Koi (carp) in the garden pool, though their mouths and feeding frenzy disgust it.

The Price of Feeding from "The Character of Rain". The Price of Feeding A daily obligation The child must feed three Koi (carp) in the garden pool, though their mouths and feeding frenzy disgust it.

The Price of Feeding A daily obligation The child must feed three Koi (carp) in the garden pool, though their mouths and feeding frenzy disgust it. A childhood responsibility turns eating from pleasure into dread. Pleasure complicated The Narrator (God) discovers that appetite can repel as well as attract. The experience unsettles the idea that bodily pleasure alone can guarantee happiness.

A Sensual Childhood A Sensual Childhood from "The Character of Rain". A Sensual Childhood Water and weather The child relishes rain, swimming, and the tactile world around Little Green Lake.

A Sensual Childhood from "The Character of Rain". A Sensual Childhood Water and weather The child relishes rain, swimming, and the tactile world around Little Green Lake.

A Sensual Childhood Water and weather The child relishes rain, swimming, and the tactile world around Little Green Lake. Sensation becomes an expansive way of belonging to Japan. Delight beside danger The same intensity that makes water beautiful also makes it dangerous. The child’s pleasure in immersion develops alongside the knowledge that familiar delights can overwhelm the body.

Before the Narrator (God)'s second birthday

February 1970, at age two and a half

The days after the White Chocolate

At age three, after the birthday

During the summer of 1970