"There were illuminated points in her vision, little pinpricks, as though the worn fabric of the visible world was being held up against a far brighter light." (60)
"Her memories of the interrogation and signed statements and testimony. or of her awe outside the courtroom from which her youth excluded her, would not trouble her so much in the years to come as her fragmented recollection of that late night and summer dawn. How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime." (162)
"'And do you get along all right with your landlady?'
He could think of nothing better, and feared the silence that might come down, and the awkwardness that would be a prelude to her telling him that it had been nice to meet up again. Now she must be getting back to work. Everything they had, rested on a few minutes in a library years ago. Was it too frail? She could easily slip back into a kind of sister. Was she disappointed? He had lost weight. He had shrunk in every sense. Prison made him despise himself, while she looked as adorable as he remembered her, especially in a nurse's uniform. But she was miserably nervous too, incapable of stepping around the inanities. Instead, she was trying to be lighthearted about her landlady's temper. After a few more such exchanges, she really was looking at the little watch that hung above her left breast, and telling him that her lunch break would soon be over. They had had half an hour." (193)
(2001. New York: Anchor Books, 2003)
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme
The Dead Father is a giant, a god who is almost but not quite dead. He is dragged through the countryside to his burial plot by a small group of humans who taunt and flirt with Him by turns. Barthelme uses a variety of experimental literary techniques to communicate the story, including long pages of short, random dialogue and paragraphs of clipped sentences conveying the actions and thoughts and words of each character. Absurdist humor abounds, along with biblical mimicry and detailed/weird sexual deviations in the bushes and it had me laughing most of the way through. The only parts that I found dull were the long pages of random snatches of wildly different conversations that really had very little to do with anything. Occasionally they were entertaining though, as here (italics mine):
"Sitting on some steps watching the tires of parked cars crack.
Shame, which has made marmosets of so many of us.
Mandrills watching from the sidelines with their clear, intelligent eyes.
Very busy making the arrangements.
Appeals to idealism.
Grocers wearing pistol belts.
It's perfectly obvious.
I was astonished to discover that his golden urine has a purple stripe in it." (150)
Two other weird snippets of conversation I liked:
"Animals in which the brain strangles the esophagus." (153)
"Tears some meat from his breast and puts it on a bun." (155)
It is evening, the party comes to a halt by the road side to make camp for the night. The Dead Father is contentedly strumming his guitar, the men are preparing trout for dinner:
"Waning or demise of sun. The projector is set up for projection of the pornographic film. Thomas decides that the Dead Father is not allowed to view the film, because of his age. Outrage of the Dead Father. Death of the guitar, whanged against a tree, in outrage. Guitar carcass added to the fire. Thomas adamant. The Dead Father raging. Emma regnant. Julie staring. Trout browning. Thomas walks to the edge. Regards the edge. Aspect of one about to hurtle over the. Thomas retreats from the edge. Slivered almonds distributed over various trouts browning in various skillets. Projector casts image upon screen (collapsible/portable). The Dead Father led away and chained to an engine block abandoned in a farther field. Revilings by the Dead Father. Damn your eyes, etc. Ignoring by Thomas. The film." (21)
The men pulling the cable attached to the Dead Father are starting to have misgivings, and ask Thomas if they're doing the right thing:
"An occasion. Thomas rising.
Your questions are good ones, he said. Your concern is well founded. I can I think best respond by relating an anecdote. You are familiar I take it with the time Martin Luther attempted to sway Franz Joseph Haydn to his cause. He called Haydn on the telephone and said, "Joe, you're the best. I want you to do a piece for us." And Haydn just said, "No way, Marty. No way."
You have got the centuries all wrong and the telephone should not be there and anyway I do not get the point, said Edmund.
You see! Thomas exclaimed. There it is! Things are not simple. Error is always possible, even with the best intentions in the world. People make mistakes. Things are not done right. Right things are not done. There are cases which are not clear. You must be able to tolerate the anxiety. To do otherwise is to jump ship, ethics-wise.
I hate anxiety, Edmund said. He produced a flask and tilted it.
Have some? he asked Thomas.
What is it?
Paint thinner with a little grenadine.
I'll pass thanks, Thomas said." (92-93)
Nolan, this one is for you. At the beginning, Julie and Thomas are arranging a time to meet for clandestine activities:
"Nine o'clock?
Ten o'clock.
I have to have bed check for the men at ten o'clock. What about eleven o'clock?
I think I can make eleven o'clock. Let me look in my book.
She looked in her book.
"Eleven o'clock, then, she said, writing a note in her book. Under the trees?
Under the stars, said Thomas.
The trees, said Julie, looks like rain.
If no rain, then the stars, said Thomas. If rain, then the trees.
Or the hedge, said Julie. Wet and dripping. Mulchy.
What are you arranging? asked the Dead Father. Could it be an assignation?
Nothing, said Julie. Nothing you should concern yourself about, dear old soul.
The Dead Father flang himself to the ground.
But I should have everything! Me! I! Myself! I am the Father! Mine! Always was and always will be! From whom all blessings flow! To whom all blessings flow! Forever and ever and ever and ever! Amen! Beatissime Pater!
He is chewing the earth again, Julie observed. One would think he would tire of it.
Thomas began singing, in a good voice.
The Dead Father stopped chewing the earth.
That is one I like, he said, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his golden robe.
For thine, Thomas sang, in a good voice, is the kingdom, and the power, and the glo-ree, for-EVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV-er...
That is one I like, said the Dead Father, I have always liked that one.
Thomas stopped singing. " (156-157)
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975)
"Sitting on some steps watching the tires of parked cars crack.
Shame, which has made marmosets of so many of us.
Mandrills watching from the sidelines with their clear, intelligent eyes.
Very busy making the arrangements.
Appeals to idealism.
Grocers wearing pistol belts.
It's perfectly obvious.
I was astonished to discover that his golden urine has a purple stripe in it." (150)
Two other weird snippets of conversation I liked:
"Animals in which the brain strangles the esophagus." (153)
"Tears some meat from his breast and puts it on a bun." (155)
It is evening, the party comes to a halt by the road side to make camp for the night. The Dead Father is contentedly strumming his guitar, the men are preparing trout for dinner:
"Waning or demise of sun. The projector is set up for projection of the pornographic film. Thomas decides that the Dead Father is not allowed to view the film, because of his age. Outrage of the Dead Father. Death of the guitar, whanged against a tree, in outrage. Guitar carcass added to the fire. Thomas adamant. The Dead Father raging. Emma regnant. Julie staring. Trout browning. Thomas walks to the edge. Regards the edge. Aspect of one about to hurtle over the. Thomas retreats from the edge. Slivered almonds distributed over various trouts browning in various skillets. Projector casts image upon screen (collapsible/portable). The Dead Father led away and chained to an engine block abandoned in a farther field. Revilings by the Dead Father. Damn your eyes, etc. Ignoring by Thomas. The film." (21)
The men pulling the cable attached to the Dead Father are starting to have misgivings, and ask Thomas if they're doing the right thing:
"An occasion. Thomas rising.
Your questions are good ones, he said. Your concern is well founded. I can I think best respond by relating an anecdote. You are familiar I take it with the time Martin Luther attempted to sway Franz Joseph Haydn to his cause. He called Haydn on the telephone and said, "Joe, you're the best. I want you to do a piece for us." And Haydn just said, "No way, Marty. No way."
You have got the centuries all wrong and the telephone should not be there and anyway I do not get the point, said Edmund.
You see! Thomas exclaimed. There it is! Things are not simple. Error is always possible, even with the best intentions in the world. People make mistakes. Things are not done right. Right things are not done. There are cases which are not clear. You must be able to tolerate the anxiety. To do otherwise is to jump ship, ethics-wise.
I hate anxiety, Edmund said. He produced a flask and tilted it.
Have some? he asked Thomas.
What is it?
Paint thinner with a little grenadine.
I'll pass thanks, Thomas said." (92-93)
Nolan, this one is for you. At the beginning, Julie and Thomas are arranging a time to meet for clandestine activities:
"Nine o'clock?
Ten o'clock.
I have to have bed check for the men at ten o'clock. What about eleven o'clock?
I think I can make eleven o'clock. Let me look in my book.
She looked in her book.
"Eleven o'clock, then, she said, writing a note in her book. Under the trees?
Under the stars, said Thomas.
The trees, said Julie, looks like rain.
If no rain, then the stars, said Thomas. If rain, then the trees.
Or the hedge, said Julie. Wet and dripping. Mulchy.
What are you arranging? asked the Dead Father. Could it be an assignation?
Nothing, said Julie. Nothing you should concern yourself about, dear old soul.
The Dead Father flang himself to the ground.
But I should have everything! Me! I! Myself! I am the Father! Mine! Always was and always will be! From whom all blessings flow! To whom all blessings flow! Forever and ever and ever and ever! Amen! Beatissime Pater!
He is chewing the earth again, Julie observed. One would think he would tire of it.
Thomas began singing, in a good voice.
The Dead Father stopped chewing the earth.
That is one I like, he said, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his golden robe.
For thine, Thomas sang, in a good voice, is the kingdom, and the power, and the glo-ree, for-EVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV-er...
That is one I like, said the Dead Father, I have always liked that one.
Thomas stopped singing. " (156-157)
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975)
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
The climax of this story was a little too neat and far-fetched (very very close friends don't normally murder eachother over personal affronts...) and also predictable from miles away because McEwan aludes to how a pact made between two men in the first half of the story is going to have repercussions later. That sort of took the wind out of these sails. Even so, I did enjoy reading it and especially loved when the composer, Clive, heads out into nature in an attempt to find inspiration for his final symphony. The reasons for seeking the outdoors and the initial timidity of confronting a world so different from the one we are accustomed to is something most of us can relate to.
"During the first hour or so, after he had turned south into the Langstrath, he felt, despite his optimism, the unease of outdoor solitude wrap itself around him. He drifted helplessly into a daydream, an elaborate story about someone hiding behind a rock, waiting to kill him. Now and then he glanced over his shoulder. He knew this feeling well because he often hiked alone. There was always a reluctance to be overcome. It was an act of will, a tussle with instinct, to keep walking away from the nearest people, from shelter, warmth, and help. A sense of scale habituated to the daily perspectives of rooms and streets was suddenly affronted by a colossal emptiness. The mass of rock rising above the valley was one long frown set in stone. The hiss and thunder of the stream was the very language of threat. His shrinking spirit and all his basic inclinations told him that it was foolish and unnecessary to keep on, that he was making a mistake.
Clive kept on because the shrinking and apprehension were precisely the conditions -- the sickness -- from which he sought release, and proof that his daily grind --crouching over that piano for hours every day -- had reduced him to a cringing state. He would be large again, and unafraid." (83)
(New York: Doubleday, 1999)
"During the first hour or so, after he had turned south into the Langstrath, he felt, despite his optimism, the unease of outdoor solitude wrap itself around him. He drifted helplessly into a daydream, an elaborate story about someone hiding behind a rock, waiting to kill him. Now and then he glanced over his shoulder. He knew this feeling well because he often hiked alone. There was always a reluctance to be overcome. It was an act of will, a tussle with instinct, to keep walking away from the nearest people, from shelter, warmth, and help. A sense of scale habituated to the daily perspectives of rooms and streets was suddenly affronted by a colossal emptiness. The mass of rock rising above the valley was one long frown set in stone. The hiss and thunder of the stream was the very language of threat. His shrinking spirit and all his basic inclinations told him that it was foolish and unnecessary to keep on, that he was making a mistake.
Clive kept on because the shrinking and apprehension were precisely the conditions -- the sickness -- from which he sought release, and proof that his daily grind --crouching over that piano for hours every day -- had reduced him to a cringing state. He would be large again, and unafraid." (83)
(New York: Doubleday, 1999)
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz
Four very simple agreements to make with yourself:
1) Be impeccable with your word
2) Don't take anything personally
3) Don't make assumptions
4) Always do your best
"We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. This is the biggest assumption that humans make. And this is why we have a fear of being ourselves around others. Because we think everyone else will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us as we do ourselves. So even before others have a chance to reject us, we have already rejected ourselves." (75)
(San Rafael: Amber-Allen Publishing, 1997)
1) Be impeccable with your word
2) Don't take anything personally
3) Don't make assumptions
4) Always do your best
"We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. This is the biggest assumption that humans make. And this is why we have a fear of being ourselves around others. Because we think everyone else will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us as we do ourselves. So even before others have a chance to reject us, we have already rejected ourselves." (75)
(San Rafael: Amber-Allen Publishing, 1997)
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Such an imaginative journey! It's fascinating to recall the strides that have been made in geology since the writing of this novel. Wegener hadn't even proposed the idea of continental drift until the early 1900's, and plate tectonic theory wasn't developed until the late 1960's, so it's rather humorous to read about a descent into the earth where every layer is in its appropriate and predestined place, and the deeper you go the older the rocks become; as though it were only natural to find completely preserved coal seams and untouched fossils from the Silurian at 30 leagues below the surface of an island. No subduction zones, no metamorphism, no recycling of rock, no sea-floor spreading, no hot viscous mantle... this was a fun one to read :)
"Well, said I rather surprised, "this discovery will astonish experimental philosophers. It was never suspected."
"Science, great, mighty and in the end unerring," replied my uncle dogmatically, "science has fallen into many errors -- errors which have been fortunate and useful rather than otherwise, for they have been the stepping stones to truth." (152)
The uncle, Professor Von Hardwigg, is a riot:
Harry: "In any case, we can never regret having come thus far. It is worth the whole journey to have enjoyed this magnificent spectacle -- it is something to have seen."
His uncle: "I care nothing about seeing, nor about magnificent spectacles. I came down into the interior of the earth with an object, and that object I mean to attain. Don't talk to me about admiring scenery, or any other sentimental trash." (166)
"About twelve o'clock a distant sound as of thunder fell upon our ears. I make a note of the fact without even venturing a suggestion as to its cause. It was one continued roar as of a sea falling over mighty rocks. [...]
Three hours passed away without any sign to indicate what might be before us. The sound began to assume that of a mighty cataract.
I expressed my opinion on this point strongly to my uncle. He merely shook his head. I, however, am strongly impressed by a conviction that I am not wrong. Are we advancing towards some mighty waterfall which shall cast us into the abyss? Probably this mode of descending into the abyss may be agreeable to the Professor, because it would be something like the vertical descent he is so eager to make. I entertain a very different opinion." (173-174)
(1864. United States: Aerie Books Ltd., no publishing date)
"Well, said I rather surprised, "this discovery will astonish experimental philosophers. It was never suspected."
"Science, great, mighty and in the end unerring," replied my uncle dogmatically, "science has fallen into many errors -- errors which have been fortunate and useful rather than otherwise, for they have been the stepping stones to truth." (152)
The uncle, Professor Von Hardwigg, is a riot:
Harry: "In any case, we can never regret having come thus far. It is worth the whole journey to have enjoyed this magnificent spectacle -- it is something to have seen."
His uncle: "I care nothing about seeing, nor about magnificent spectacles. I came down into the interior of the earth with an object, and that object I mean to attain. Don't talk to me about admiring scenery, or any other sentimental trash." (166)
"About twelve o'clock a distant sound as of thunder fell upon our ears. I make a note of the fact without even venturing a suggestion as to its cause. It was one continued roar as of a sea falling over mighty rocks. [...]
Three hours passed away without any sign to indicate what might be before us. The sound began to assume that of a mighty cataract.
I expressed my opinion on this point strongly to my uncle. He merely shook his head. I, however, am strongly impressed by a conviction that I am not wrong. Are we advancing towards some mighty waterfall which shall cast us into the abyss? Probably this mode of descending into the abyss may be agreeable to the Professor, because it would be something like the vertical descent he is so eager to make. I entertain a very different opinion." (173-174)
(1864. United States: Aerie Books Ltd., no publishing date)
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus by Carolina Maria de Jesus
"January 7 Today I fixed rice and beans and fried eggs. What happiness. Reading this you are going to think Brazil doesn't have anything to eat. We have. It's just that the prices are so impossible that we can't buy it. We have dried fish in the shops that wait for years and years for purchasers. The flies make the fish filthy. Then the fish rots and the clerks throw it in the garbage, and throw acid on it so the poor won't pick it up and eat it. My children have never eaten dried fish. They beg me.
'Buy it, Mother!'
But buy -- how? At 180 cruzeiros a kilo? I hope, if God helps me, that before I die I'll be able to buy some dried fish for them." (140)
"July 15 When I got out of bed, Vera was already awake and she asked me:
'Mama, isn't today my birthday?'
'It is. My congratulations. I wish you happiness.'
'Are you going to make a cake for me?'
'I don't know. If I can get some money...'
I lit the fire and went to carry water. The women were complaining that the water was running out slow.
The garbagemen have gone by. I got little paper. I went by the factory to pick up some rags. I began to feel dizzy. I made up my mind to go to Dona Angelina's house to ask for a little coffee. Dona Angelina gave me some. When I went out I told her I was feeling better.
'It's hunger. You need to eat.'
'But what I earn isn't enough.'
I have lost eight kilos. I have no meat on my bones, and the little I did have has gone. I picked up the papers and went out. When I went past a shop window I saw my reflection. I looked the other way because I thought I was seeing a ghost.
I fried fish and made some corn mush for the children to eat with the fish. When Vera showed up and saw the mush inside the pot she asked:
'Is that a cake? Today is my birthday!'
'No, it isn't cake. It's mush.'
'I don't like mush!'
I got some milk. I gave her milk and mush. She ate it, sobbing.
Who am I to make a cake?" (167-168)
(1962. New York: Signet Classic, 2003)
'Buy it, Mother!'
But buy -- how? At 180 cruzeiros a kilo? I hope, if God helps me, that before I die I'll be able to buy some dried fish for them." (140)
"July 15 When I got out of bed, Vera was already awake and she asked me:
'Mama, isn't today my birthday?'
'It is. My congratulations. I wish you happiness.'
'Are you going to make a cake for me?'
'I don't know. If I can get some money...'
I lit the fire and went to carry water. The women were complaining that the water was running out slow.
The garbagemen have gone by. I got little paper. I went by the factory to pick up some rags. I began to feel dizzy. I made up my mind to go to Dona Angelina's house to ask for a little coffee. Dona Angelina gave me some. When I went out I told her I was feeling better.
'It's hunger. You need to eat.'
'But what I earn isn't enough.'
I have lost eight kilos. I have no meat on my bones, and the little I did have has gone. I picked up the papers and went out. When I went past a shop window I saw my reflection. I looked the other way because I thought I was seeing a ghost.
I fried fish and made some corn mush for the children to eat with the fish. When Vera showed up and saw the mush inside the pot she asked:
'Is that a cake? Today is my birthday!'
'No, it isn't cake. It's mush.'
'I don't like mush!'
I got some milk. I gave her milk and mush. She ate it, sobbing.
Who am I to make a cake?" (167-168)
(1962. New York: Signet Classic, 2003)
Friday, December 14, 2007
Number9Dream by David Mitchell
"I sugarize my coffee, rest my teaspoon on the meniscus, and sloooooowly dribble the cream onto the bowl of the spoon. Pangaea rotates, floating unruptured before splitting into subcontinents. Playing with coffee is the only pleasure I can afford in Tokyo." (17)
"Maybe the truest difference between people is exactly this: why we think we are here." (282)
"Now, for Kirara, I was just a dish of peanuts to nibble with her entree. For me, Kirara was the entire menu at the Viking feast of love." (368)
(New York: Random House, 2001)
"Maybe the truest difference between people is exactly this: why we think we are here." (282)
"Now, for Kirara, I was just a dish of peanuts to nibble with her entree. For me, Kirara was the entire menu at the Viking feast of love." (368)
(New York: Random House, 2001)
Friday, November 30, 2007
The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
I think the whole point of this book is: don't be so laissez-faire about your life and your choices that you willingly lumber right into your own demise/downfall. In fact, I don't even feel like Colin and Mary ever made any real choices.. they just went along with what outside influences dictated for them. Maybe it was all the pot that made them so listless and irritable.
"It was the total absence of traffic in the city that allowed visitors the freedom to become so easily lost. They crossed streets without looking and, on impulse, plunged down narrower ones because they curved tantalizingly into darkness, or because they were drawn by the smell of frying fish. There were no signs. Without a specific destination, the visitors chose routes as they might choose a colour, and even the precise manner in which they became lost expressed their cumulative choices, their will." (21)
"Robert was fifty yards away, walking unhurriedly towards him. Colin turned round to look behind. A narrow commercial street, barely more than an alley, broke the line of weatherbeaten houses. It wound under shop awnings and under washing hung like bunting from tiny wrought-iron balconies, and vanished enticingly into shadow. It asked to be explored, but explored alone, without consultations with, or obligations towards, a companion. To step down there now as if completely free, to be released from the arduous states of play of psychological condition, to have leisure to be open and attentive to perception, to the world whose breathtaking, incessant cascade against the senses was so easily and habitually ignored, dinned out, in the interests of unexamined ideals of personal responsibility, efficiency, citizenship, to step down there now, just walk away, melt into the shadow, would be so very easy." (112)
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1981)
"It was the total absence of traffic in the city that allowed visitors the freedom to become so easily lost. They crossed streets without looking and, on impulse, plunged down narrower ones because they curved tantalizingly into darkness, or because they were drawn by the smell of frying fish. There were no signs. Without a specific destination, the visitors chose routes as they might choose a colour, and even the precise manner in which they became lost expressed their cumulative choices, their will." (21)
"Robert was fifty yards away, walking unhurriedly towards him. Colin turned round to look behind. A narrow commercial street, barely more than an alley, broke the line of weatherbeaten houses. It wound under shop awnings and under washing hung like bunting from tiny wrought-iron balconies, and vanished enticingly into shadow. It asked to be explored, but explored alone, without consultations with, or obligations towards, a companion. To step down there now as if completely free, to be released from the arduous states of play of psychological condition, to have leisure to be open and attentive to perception, to the world whose breathtaking, incessant cascade against the senses was so easily and habitually ignored, dinned out, in the interests of unexamined ideals of personal responsibility, efficiency, citizenship, to step down there now, just walk away, melt into the shadow, would be so very easy." (112)
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1981)
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability by Paul Hawken
A wake-up call if ever there was one:
1.) "A hundred years ago, even fifty years ago, it did not seem urgent that we understand the relationship between business and a healthy environment, because natural resources seemed unlimited. But on the verge of a new millennium we know that we have decimated ninety-seven percent of the ancient forests in North America; every day our farmers and ranchers draw out 20 billion more gallons of water from the ground than are replaced by rainfall; the Ogalala Aquifer, an underwater river beneath the Great Plains larger than any body of fresh water on earth, will dry up within thirty to forty years at present rates of extraction; globally we lose 25 billion tons of fertile topsoil every year, the equivalent of all the wheatfields in Australia. These critical losses are occurring while the world population is increasing at the rate of 90 million people per year. Quite simply, our business practices are destroying life on earth. Given current corporate practices, not one wildlife reserve, wilderness, or indigenous culture will survive the global market economy. We know that every natural system on the planet is disintegrating. The land, water, air, and sea have been functionally transformed from life-supporting systems into repositories for waste. There is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world." (3)
2.) "...we need to rethink our markets entirely, asking ourselves how it is that products which harm and destroy life can be sold more cheaply than those that don't. Markets, so extremely effective at setting prices, are not currently equipped to recognize the true costs of producing goods. Because of this, business has two contradictory forces operating upon it: the need to achieve the lowest price in order to thrive if not survive in the marketplace, and the increasingly urgent social demand that it internalize the expense of acting more responsibly toward the environment.
Without doubt, the single most damaging aspect of the present economic system is that the expense of destroying the earth is largely absent from the prices set in the marketplace." (13)
3.) "Natural and human history are full of examples in which animals or humans exceeded carrying capacity and went into steep declines, or extinction. A haunting and oft-cited case of such an overshoot took place on St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea in 1944 when 29 reindeer were imported. Specialists had calculated that the island could support 13 to 18 reindeer per square mile, or a total population of between 1,600 and 2,300 animals. By 1957, the population was 1,350; but by 1963, with no natural controls or predators, the population had exploded to 6,000. The original calculations had been correct; this number vastly exceeded carrying capacity and was soon decimated by disease and starvation. Such a drastic overshoot, however, did not lead to restabilization at a lower level, with the "extra" reindeer dying off. Instead, the entire habitat was so damaged by the overshoot that the number of reindeer fell drastically below the original carrying capacity, and by 1966 there were only 42 reindeer alive on St. Matthew Island." (25)
4.) "[It is senseless] to create packaging that lasts four hundred years to keep on a shelf for two months a product that we eat in two minutes [...]" (40)
5.) "If economic growth is founded on an ever-increasing reliance on chemicals, toxins, poisons, and energy by-products, then we will choke on the growth that is supposed to save us. The solution is not to put better filters on our effluent pipes, or line the settling ponds with thicker plastic, or fire the incinerators fifty degrees hotter. We need a different kind of growth, one that reduces and changes the inputs of raw materials and energy, and simultaneously eliminates the outputs of waste. We will have environmental success as a nation when we have eliminated most if not all toxic substances. When planes still swoop down and aerial spray a field in order to kill a predator insect with pesticides, we are in the Dark Ages of commerce. Maybe one-thousandth of this aerial insecticide actually prevents the infestation. The balance goes into the leaves, into the soil, into the water, into all forms of wildlife, into ourselves." (52)
6.) "To pay the bills from the past, we need a means. To act we need a way to serve. For those who say that times are tough, that we can ill afford sweeping changes because the existing system is already broke or hobbled, consider that the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R. spent over $10 trillion on the Cold War, enough money to replace the entire infrastructure of the world, every school, every hospital, every roadway, building and farm. In other words, we bought and sold the whole world to defeat a political movement." (58)
7.) "Because our automobile exhaust is fairly clean if not invisible, it is difficult to conceive of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. After all, we all exhale carbon dioxide; it is food for our plants. Another way of imagining the scale of the carbon dioxide problem is by removing its two oxygen molecules. Looked at that way, every time you fill up and use a tank of gas in a medium-sized American car, you are depositing in the atmosphere the equivalent of a 100-pound sack of pure carbon, 5.6 pounds for every gallon of gasoline. Now try to imagine the 450 million automobiles on the road today, the railroads and trucks, the tractors and heavy equipment, the chainsaws and motorcycles, the diesel fuel for the ships, the jet fuel for airplanes, and to them add the oil- and coal-fired steam turbines generating 100 million megawatts of electricity, the thousands of steel works fed with coke, the natural gasoline flared at petroleum wellheads and burned on our stovetops. When the year is over, not counting the 1 to 2 billion tons of carbon placed into the air from burning forests and grasslands, every person in the world will have placed 2,363 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere, a total of 5,854,000,000 tons, three and a half times as much as we emitted thirty years ago." (85)
8.) "Competition in the marketplace should not be between a company wasting the environment versus one that is trying to save it. Competition should be between which company can do the best job in restoring and preserving the environment, thereby reversing historical price and cost incentives of the industrial system that essentially send the wrong signals to consumers." (90)
(New York: HarperBusiness, 1993)
1.) "A hundred years ago, even fifty years ago, it did not seem urgent that we understand the relationship between business and a healthy environment, because natural resources seemed unlimited. But on the verge of a new millennium we know that we have decimated ninety-seven percent of the ancient forests in North America; every day our farmers and ranchers draw out 20 billion more gallons of water from the ground than are replaced by rainfall; the Ogalala Aquifer, an underwater river beneath the Great Plains larger than any body of fresh water on earth, will dry up within thirty to forty years at present rates of extraction; globally we lose 25 billion tons of fertile topsoil every year, the equivalent of all the wheatfields in Australia. These critical losses are occurring while the world population is increasing at the rate of 90 million people per year. Quite simply, our business practices are destroying life on earth. Given current corporate practices, not one wildlife reserve, wilderness, or indigenous culture will survive the global market economy. We know that every natural system on the planet is disintegrating. The land, water, air, and sea have been functionally transformed from life-supporting systems into repositories for waste. There is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world." (3)
2.) "...we need to rethink our markets entirely, asking ourselves how it is that products which harm and destroy life can be sold more cheaply than those that don't. Markets, so extremely effective at setting prices, are not currently equipped to recognize the true costs of producing goods. Because of this, business has two contradictory forces operating upon it: the need to achieve the lowest price in order to thrive if not survive in the marketplace, and the increasingly urgent social demand that it internalize the expense of acting more responsibly toward the environment.
Without doubt, the single most damaging aspect of the present economic system is that the expense of destroying the earth is largely absent from the prices set in the marketplace." (13)
3.) "Natural and human history are full of examples in which animals or humans exceeded carrying capacity and went into steep declines, or extinction. A haunting and oft-cited case of such an overshoot took place on St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea in 1944 when 29 reindeer were imported. Specialists had calculated that the island could support 13 to 18 reindeer per square mile, or a total population of between 1,600 and 2,300 animals. By 1957, the population was 1,350; but by 1963, with no natural controls or predators, the population had exploded to 6,000. The original calculations had been correct; this number vastly exceeded carrying capacity and was soon decimated by disease and starvation. Such a drastic overshoot, however, did not lead to restabilization at a lower level, with the "extra" reindeer dying off. Instead, the entire habitat was so damaged by the overshoot that the number of reindeer fell drastically below the original carrying capacity, and by 1966 there were only 42 reindeer alive on St. Matthew Island." (25)
4.) "[It is senseless] to create packaging that lasts four hundred years to keep on a shelf for two months a product that we eat in two minutes [...]" (40)
5.) "If economic growth is founded on an ever-increasing reliance on chemicals, toxins, poisons, and energy by-products, then we will choke on the growth that is supposed to save us. The solution is not to put better filters on our effluent pipes, or line the settling ponds with thicker plastic, or fire the incinerators fifty degrees hotter. We need a different kind of growth, one that reduces and changes the inputs of raw materials and energy, and simultaneously eliminates the outputs of waste. We will have environmental success as a nation when we have eliminated most if not all toxic substances. When planes still swoop down and aerial spray a field in order to kill a predator insect with pesticides, we are in the Dark Ages of commerce. Maybe one-thousandth of this aerial insecticide actually prevents the infestation. The balance goes into the leaves, into the soil, into the water, into all forms of wildlife, into ourselves." (52)
6.) "To pay the bills from the past, we need a means. To act we need a way to serve. For those who say that times are tough, that we can ill afford sweeping changes because the existing system is already broke or hobbled, consider that the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R. spent over $10 trillion on the Cold War, enough money to replace the entire infrastructure of the world, every school, every hospital, every roadway, building and farm. In other words, we bought and sold the whole world to defeat a political movement." (58)
7.) "Because our automobile exhaust is fairly clean if not invisible, it is difficult to conceive of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. After all, we all exhale carbon dioxide; it is food for our plants. Another way of imagining the scale of the carbon dioxide problem is by removing its two oxygen molecules. Looked at that way, every time you fill up and use a tank of gas in a medium-sized American car, you are depositing in the atmosphere the equivalent of a 100-pound sack of pure carbon, 5.6 pounds for every gallon of gasoline. Now try to imagine the 450 million automobiles on the road today, the railroads and trucks, the tractors and heavy equipment, the chainsaws and motorcycles, the diesel fuel for the ships, the jet fuel for airplanes, and to them add the oil- and coal-fired steam turbines generating 100 million megawatts of electricity, the thousands of steel works fed with coke, the natural gasoline flared at petroleum wellheads and burned on our stovetops. When the year is over, not counting the 1 to 2 billion tons of carbon placed into the air from burning forests and grasslands, every person in the world will have placed 2,363 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere, a total of 5,854,000,000 tons, three and a half times as much as we emitted thirty years ago." (85)
8.) "Competition in the marketplace should not be between a company wasting the environment versus one that is trying to save it. Competition should be between which company can do the best job in restoring and preserving the environment, thereby reversing historical price and cost incentives of the industrial system that essentially send the wrong signals to consumers." (90)
(New York: HarperBusiness, 1993)
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
I read this almost in one sitting and it was like balm on my soul. Very predictable story, but filled with well-drawn characters and beautiful images. Sometimes it's nice to read a book with a happy ending :)
"'There is no such thing as freedom on earth,' he said. 'Only different kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. You think you are free now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbearable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me -- that's a bondage.'
'Who said or wrote that "the prison unto which we doom ourselves no prison is"?' asked Valancy dreamily, clinging to his arm as they climbed up the rock steps.
'Ah, now you have it,' said Barney. 'That's all the freedom we can hope for -- the freedom to choose our prison. But, Moonlight' -- he stopped at the door of the Blue Castle and looked about him -- at the glorious lake, the great, shadowy woods, the bonfires, the twinkling lights -- 'Moonlight, I'm glad to be home again. When I came down through the woods and saw my home lights -- mine -- gleaming out under the old pines -- something I'd never seen before -- oh, girl, I was glad -- glad!'
But in spite of Barney's doctrine on bondage, Valancy thought they were splendidly free. It was amazing to be able to sit up half the night and look at the moon if you wanted to. To be late for meals if you wanted to -- she who had always been rebuked so sharply by her mother and so reproachfully by Cousin Stickles if she were one minute late. Dawdle over meals as long as you wanted to. Leave your crusts if you wanted to. Not come home at all for meals if you wanted to. Sit on a sun-warm rock and paddle your bare feet in the hot sand if you wanted to. Just sit and do nothing in the beautiful silence if you wanted to. In short, do any fool thing you wanted to whenever the notion took you. If that wasn't freedom, what was?" (154-155)
"...white birches shining among the dark spruces like beautiful women's bodies -- winter snows and rose-red sunset fires -- lakes drunken with moonshine..." (205)
"She recalled all his friendly looks and quips and jests -- his little compliments -- his caresses. She counted them all over as a woman might count her jewels -- not one did she miss from the first day they had met." (205)
(1926. New York: Bantom, 1989)
"'There is no such thing as freedom on earth,' he said. 'Only different kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. You think you are free now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbearable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me -- that's a bondage.'
'Who said or wrote that "the prison unto which we doom ourselves no prison is"?' asked Valancy dreamily, clinging to his arm as they climbed up the rock steps.
'Ah, now you have it,' said Barney. 'That's all the freedom we can hope for -- the freedom to choose our prison. But, Moonlight' -- he stopped at the door of the Blue Castle and looked about him -- at the glorious lake, the great, shadowy woods, the bonfires, the twinkling lights -- 'Moonlight, I'm glad to be home again. When I came down through the woods and saw my home lights -- mine -- gleaming out under the old pines -- something I'd never seen before -- oh, girl, I was glad -- glad!'
But in spite of Barney's doctrine on bondage, Valancy thought they were splendidly free. It was amazing to be able to sit up half the night and look at the moon if you wanted to. To be late for meals if you wanted to -- she who had always been rebuked so sharply by her mother and so reproachfully by Cousin Stickles if she were one minute late. Dawdle over meals as long as you wanted to. Leave your crusts if you wanted to. Not come home at all for meals if you wanted to. Sit on a sun-warm rock and paddle your bare feet in the hot sand if you wanted to. Just sit and do nothing in the beautiful silence if you wanted to. In short, do any fool thing you wanted to whenever the notion took you. If that wasn't freedom, what was?" (154-155)
"...white birches shining among the dark spruces like beautiful women's bodies -- winter snows and rose-red sunset fires -- lakes drunken with moonshine..." (205)
"She recalled all his friendly looks and quips and jests -- his little compliments -- his caresses. She counted them all over as a woman might count her jewels -- not one did she miss from the first day they had met." (205)
(1926. New York: Bantom, 1989)
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
"In 1858, a year after the massacre, Brigham Young reluctantly agreed to admit federal troops into Utah and to step down as territorial governor, bringing an end to the threat of all-out war between Saints and the United States. But persistent rumors that Mormons had committed unspeakable atrocities against the Fancher wagon train kept drifting up from the southern settlements, threatening the fragile peace.
President Buchanan's secretary of war ordered army brevet major James H. Carlton to investigate the matter. Arriving at the Mountain Meadows in the spring of 1859, Carlton was sickened to discover that, nearly two years after the event, the valley was littered with skulls, bones, clumps of women's hair, and scraps of children's clothing bleaching in the sun. An army surgeon reported that many of the skulls 'bore marks of violence, being pierced with bullet holes, or shattered with heavy blows, or cleft with some sharp-edged instrument.' The nature of the bullet wounds, he concluded, 'showed that fire-arms had been discharged close to the head.'
'There has been a great and fearful crime perpetrated,' Carlton declared. His soldiers gathered up whatever bones they could find, interred them in a common grave, and then laboriously hauled stones from the surrounding hillsides to build a massive, if crude, monument above it. At the apex of this rock pile, which was twelve feet high and fifty feet in circumference, they placed a wooden cross inscribed with the epigraph 'Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord.'
In May 1861, Brigham Young happened upon this memorial as he was passing through the meadow during a tour of his southern settlements. According to Apostle Wilford Woodruff, who was accompanying the prophet, when Brigham read the inscription on the cross he pondered it for a short while and then proposed an emendation: 'Vengeance is mine,' the prophet smugly asserted, 'and I have taken a little.' A moment later one of the Saints in his entourage threw a rope over the cross and pulled it down, while others began dismantling the stones and scattering them. By the time Brigham's party departed the Mountain Meadows, the monument to the slaughtered emigrants had been obliterated." (231-232)
"The men who run the modern LDS Church deem the history of their religion to be sacred, and have long tried to retain tight proprietary control over how that history is presented to the world. Indeed, LDS leaders have explicitly stated that they believe accounts of Mormon history should be, above all else, 'faith promoting' -- that is to say, accounts of Mormon history should be celebratory rather than critical, and should downplay, omit, or deny sensitive or unsavory aspects of that history. As Apostle Boyd Packer (presently second in line to become LDS President and Prophet) declared in an infamous 1981 speech, 'There is a temptation . . . to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith-promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful. . . . In an effort to be objective, impartial, and scholarly, a writer or a teacher may unwittingly be giving equal time to the adversary. . . . In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it.' This war is for the minds and souls of the earth's population -- a war that Latter-day Saints wage with all the resources at their disposal." (362)
(New York: Anchor Books, 2004)
President Buchanan's secretary of war ordered army brevet major James H. Carlton to investigate the matter. Arriving at the Mountain Meadows in the spring of 1859, Carlton was sickened to discover that, nearly two years after the event, the valley was littered with skulls, bones, clumps of women's hair, and scraps of children's clothing bleaching in the sun. An army surgeon reported that many of the skulls 'bore marks of violence, being pierced with bullet holes, or shattered with heavy blows, or cleft with some sharp-edged instrument.' The nature of the bullet wounds, he concluded, 'showed that fire-arms had been discharged close to the head.'
'There has been a great and fearful crime perpetrated,' Carlton declared. His soldiers gathered up whatever bones they could find, interred them in a common grave, and then laboriously hauled stones from the surrounding hillsides to build a massive, if crude, monument above it. At the apex of this rock pile, which was twelve feet high and fifty feet in circumference, they placed a wooden cross inscribed with the epigraph 'Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord.'
In May 1861, Brigham Young happened upon this memorial as he was passing through the meadow during a tour of his southern settlements. According to Apostle Wilford Woodruff, who was accompanying the prophet, when Brigham read the inscription on the cross he pondered it for a short while and then proposed an emendation: 'Vengeance is mine,' the prophet smugly asserted, 'and I have taken a little.' A moment later one of the Saints in his entourage threw a rope over the cross and pulled it down, while others began dismantling the stones and scattering them. By the time Brigham's party departed the Mountain Meadows, the monument to the slaughtered emigrants had been obliterated." (231-232)
"The men who run the modern LDS Church deem the history of their religion to be sacred, and have long tried to retain tight proprietary control over how that history is presented to the world. Indeed, LDS leaders have explicitly stated that they believe accounts of Mormon history should be, above all else, 'faith promoting' -- that is to say, accounts of Mormon history should be celebratory rather than critical, and should downplay, omit, or deny sensitive or unsavory aspects of that history. As Apostle Boyd Packer (presently second in line to become LDS President and Prophet) declared in an infamous 1981 speech, 'There is a temptation . . . to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith-promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful. . . . In an effort to be objective, impartial, and scholarly, a writer or a teacher may unwittingly be giving equal time to the adversary. . . . In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it.' This war is for the minds and souls of the earth's population -- a war that Latter-day Saints wage with all the resources at their disposal." (362)
(New York: Anchor Books, 2004)
Friday, October 12, 2007
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
"And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr. Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach." (47)
"Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows into sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by holding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and desolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent creatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream down. Out on the pale criss-crossed sand, high-stepping, fringed, gauntleted, stalked some fantastic leviathan (she was still enlarging the pool), and slipped into the vast fissures of the mountain side. And then, letting her eyes slide imperceptibly above the pool and rest on that wavering line of sea and sky, on the tree trunks which the smoke of steamers made waver upon the horizon, she became with all that power sweeping savagely in and inevitably withdrawing, hypnotised, and the two senses of that vastness and this tininess (the pool had diminished again) flowering within it made her feel that she was bound hand and foot and unable to move by the intensity of feelings which reduced her own body, her own life, and the lives of all the people in the world, for ever, to nothingness. So listening to the waves, crouching over the pool, she brooded." (75-76)
"Lily Briscoe watched her drifting into that strange no-man's land where to follow people is impossible and yet their going inflicts such a chill on those who watch them that they always try at least to follow them with their eyes as one follows a fading ship until the sails have sunk beneath the horizon." (84)
"...let the tongue of the door slowly lengthen in the lock..." (116)
(1927. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989)
"Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows into sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by holding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and desolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent creatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream down. Out on the pale criss-crossed sand, high-stepping, fringed, gauntleted, stalked some fantastic leviathan (she was still enlarging the pool), and slipped into the vast fissures of the mountain side. And then, letting her eyes slide imperceptibly above the pool and rest on that wavering line of sea and sky, on the tree trunks which the smoke of steamers made waver upon the horizon, she became with all that power sweeping savagely in and inevitably withdrawing, hypnotised, and the two senses of that vastness and this tininess (the pool had diminished again) flowering within it made her feel that she was bound hand and foot and unable to move by the intensity of feelings which reduced her own body, her own life, and the lives of all the people in the world, for ever, to nothingness. So listening to the waves, crouching over the pool, she brooded." (75-76)
"Lily Briscoe watched her drifting into that strange no-man's land where to follow people is impossible and yet their going inflicts such a chill on those who watch them that they always try at least to follow them with their eyes as one follows a fading ship until the sails have sunk beneath the horizon." (84)
"...let the tongue of the door slowly lengthen in the lock..." (116)
(1927. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989)
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains by Jon Krakauer
"...Marc and I had come to Switzerland to climb the Nordwand. Marc, eight years my junior, sports two earrings in his left ear and a purple haircut that would do a punk rocker proud. He is also a red-hot climber. One of the differences between us was that Marc wanted very badly to climb the Eiger, while I wanted very badly only to have climbed the Eiger. Marc, understand, is at that age when the pituitary secretes an overabundance of those hormones that mask the subtler emotions, such as fear. He tends to confuse things like life-or-death climbing with fun. As a friendly gesture, I planned to let Marc lead all the most fun pitches on the Nordwand." (3-4)
"As the day wore on, I could feel my nerves beginning to unravel. At one point, while leading over crusty, crumbly vertical ice on the Ice Hose, I suddenly become overwhelmed by the fact that the only things preventing me from flying off into space were two thin steel picks sunk half an inch into a medium that resembled the inside of my freezer when it needs to be defrosted. I looked down at the ground more than three thousand feet below and felt dizzy, as if I were about to faint. I had to close my eyes and take a dozen deep breathes before I could resume climbing." (11)
(New York: Lyons Press, 1990)
"As the day wore on, I could feel my nerves beginning to unravel. At one point, while leading over crusty, crumbly vertical ice on the Ice Hose, I suddenly become overwhelmed by the fact that the only things preventing me from flying off into space were two thin steel picks sunk half an inch into a medium that resembled the inside of my freezer when it needs to be defrosted. I looked down at the ground more than three thousand feet below and felt dizzy, as if I were about to faint. I had to close my eyes and take a dozen deep breathes before I could resume climbing." (11)
(New York: Lyons Press, 1990)
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
I have never read a more emotional, impossible, unnerving survival story. Downright terrifying, I was quite literally biting my nails through the entire 170 pages. At this point, Joe has survived shattering his knee and breaking his heel, has been painfully lowered 2,000 feet down an exposed mountain face in a snowstorm, fallen 100 feet into a crevasse, climbed back out with one good leg, crawled across a fracture-filled glacier, hopped/crawled for miles through boulder-strewn moraines, all without food or water for days. We are in his head for the entirety:
"The voice kept urging me on, 'Place-lift-brace hop...keep going. Look how far you've gone. Just do it, don't think about it...'
I did as I was told. Stumbling past and sometimes over boulders, falling, crying, swearing in a litany that matched the pattern of my hopping. I forgot why I was doing it; forgot even the idea that I probably wouldn't make it. Running on instincts that I had never suspected were in me, and drifting down the sea of moraines in a blurred delirium of thirst, and pain and hopping, I timed myself religiously. I looked ahead to a landmark and gave myself half an hour to reach it. As I neared the mark, a furious bout of watch-glancing would ensue, until it became part of the pattern...place-lift-brace-hop-time. If I realised I was behind time I tried to rush the last ten minutes of hopping. I fell so much more when I rushed but it had become so damned important to beat the watch. Only once did I fail to beat it, and I sobbed with annoyance. The watch became as crucial as my good leg. I had no sense of time passing, and with each fall I lay in a semi-stupor, accepting the pain and quite unaware of how long I had been there. A look at the watch would galvanise me into action, especially when I saw it had been five minutes and not the thirty seconds it had felt like. " (138-139)
His descriptions of being half in and out of consciousness are immediate and stunning:
"Without checking my watch I had lain in stupefied exhaustion after every fall. Lain there and listened to endless stories running through the pain, watched short dreams of life in the real world, played songs to my heartbeat, licked the mud for water, and wasted countless hours in an empty dream." (141)
(New York: HarperPerennial, 1998)
"The voice kept urging me on, 'Place-lift-brace hop...keep going. Look how far you've gone. Just do it, don't think about it...'
I did as I was told. Stumbling past and sometimes over boulders, falling, crying, swearing in a litany that matched the pattern of my hopping. I forgot why I was doing it; forgot even the idea that I probably wouldn't make it. Running on instincts that I had never suspected were in me, and drifting down the sea of moraines in a blurred delirium of thirst, and pain and hopping, I timed myself religiously. I looked ahead to a landmark and gave myself half an hour to reach it. As I neared the mark, a furious bout of watch-glancing would ensue, until it became part of the pattern...place-lift-brace-hop-time. If I realised I was behind time I tried to rush the last ten minutes of hopping. I fell so much more when I rushed but it had become so damned important to beat the watch. Only once did I fail to beat it, and I sobbed with annoyance. The watch became as crucial as my good leg. I had no sense of time passing, and with each fall I lay in a semi-stupor, accepting the pain and quite unaware of how long I had been there. A look at the watch would galvanise me into action, especially when I saw it had been five minutes and not the thirty seconds it had felt like. " (138-139)
His descriptions of being half in and out of consciousness are immediate and stunning:
"Without checking my watch I had lain in stupefied exhaustion after every fall. Lain there and listened to endless stories running through the pain, watched short dreams of life in the real world, played songs to my heartbeat, licked the mud for water, and wasted countless hours in an empty dream." (141)
(New York: HarperPerennial, 1998)
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
So Big by Edna Ferber
"They're nice," she said, "but they don't have much fun. [...] They're professional amateurs, trying to express something they don't feel; or that they don't feel strongly enough to make it worth while expressing." (240)
"He tore at the smooth wall of her indifference, though he only cut and bruised his own hands in doing it." (242)
(1924. New York: Perennial, 2000)
"He tore at the smooth wall of her indifference, though he only cut and bruised his own hands in doing it." (242)
(1924. New York: Perennial, 2000)
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read
"It would have been possible now to avoid eating such things as rotten lungs and putrid intestines of bodies they had cut up weeks before but half the boys continued to do so because they had come to need the stronger taste. It had taken a supreme effort of will for these boys to eat human flesh at all, but once they had started and persevered, appetite had come with the eating, for the instinct to survive was a harsh tyrant which demanded not just that they eat their companions, but that they get used to doing so." (214)
(New York: Avon Books, 1975)
(New York: Avon Books, 1975)
Monday, July 30, 2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
"From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe: She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
'After all this time?'
'Always.' said Snape." (687)
(New York: Scholastic, 2007)
'After all this time?'
'Always.' said Snape." (687)
(New York: Scholastic, 2007)
Friday, July 27, 2007
Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books by Francesca Lia Block
My friend Shalece lent me this book. The title and the cover made me hesitant to even start it, but I'm so glad I did. Utterly luminous, sensual, and shimmering. You can't read this and not feel optimistic and happy to be alive, even with all the shadows.
Part that struck me as beautiful:
"Raphael [...] rode his bicycle through sunlight and wind chimes and bird shadows to Cherokee's house." (165)
Truth:
"'I think people leave here before we think they're gone.' Weetzie whispers as she looks at the picture. 'And when you're with them you know it. Part of you knows it -- that they've left. But you dont let yourself really accept it. And then later you think about it and you know you knew.'" (269)
I like this bit here because it's a good representation of the style and thoughtfulness that each page holds:
"All up and down the avenue shivering junkies are selling things. Ugster vinyl pumps, Partridge Family records, plastic daisy jewelry, old postcards. Where do they get this stuff? It's a magpie Christmas market.
'Look at that man.' Charlie says
I see a hungry face.
'No. With your camera.'
I look through my camera at the man and I can almost feel the veins in my own arms twitch-switching with wanting. In a way the junkies aren't so much different from me or maybe from everybody.
I guess in a way Angel Juan is my fix and I've been jonesing for him. If he were a needle I'd be shooting up just like these jittery junkies. I'd be flooding my veins with Angel Juan. When we made love it felt like that.
And doing it can be almost as dangerous as shooting up if you think about it.
And I wasn't the only one sad and lonely and freaked. There was a whole city of people. Some had to sell other people's postcards on the street just to buy a needle full of junk so they wouldn't shatter like the mirror I smashed with a hammer in Charlie Bat's apartment." (332)
(New York: HarperCollins, 1998)
Part that struck me as beautiful:
"Raphael [...] rode his bicycle through sunlight and wind chimes and bird shadows to Cherokee's house." (165)
Truth:
"'I think people leave here before we think they're gone.' Weetzie whispers as she looks at the picture. 'And when you're with them you know it. Part of you knows it -- that they've left. But you dont let yourself really accept it. And then later you think about it and you know you knew.'" (269)
I like this bit here because it's a good representation of the style and thoughtfulness that each page holds:
"All up and down the avenue shivering junkies are selling things. Ugster vinyl pumps, Partridge Family records, plastic daisy jewelry, old postcards. Where do they get this stuff? It's a magpie Christmas market.
'Look at that man.' Charlie says
I see a hungry face.
'No. With your camera.'
I look through my camera at the man and I can almost feel the veins in my own arms twitch-switching with wanting. In a way the junkies aren't so much different from me or maybe from everybody.
I guess in a way Angel Juan is my fix and I've been jonesing for him. If he were a needle I'd be shooting up just like these jittery junkies. I'd be flooding my veins with Angel Juan. When we made love it felt like that.
And doing it can be almost as dangerous as shooting up if you think about it.
And I wasn't the only one sad and lonely and freaked. There was a whole city of people. Some had to sell other people's postcards on the street just to buy a needle full of junk so they wouldn't shatter like the mirror I smashed with a hammer in Charlie Bat's apartment." (332)
(New York: HarperCollins, 1998)
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
From a letter written by McCandless to his friend:
"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." (57)
(New York: Anchor Books, 1997)
"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." (57)
(New York: Anchor Books, 1997)
Saturday, June 30, 2007
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan. Ann Druyan, editor
"...we have a theology that is Earth-centered and involves a tiny piece of space, and when we step back, when we attain a broader cosmic perspective, some of it seems very small in scale. And in fact a general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the God portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy, much less of a universe." (30)
"Does trying to understand the universe at all betray a lack of humility? I believe it is true that humility is the only just response in a confrontation with the universe, but not a humility that prevents us from seeking the nature of the universe we are admiring. If we seek that nature, then love can be informed by truth instead of being based on ignorance or self-deception. If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It or whatever the appropriate pronoun is, prefer a sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing?" (31)
"You start out the universe, you can do anything. You can see all future consequences of your present action. You want a certain desired end. Why don't you arrange it in the beginning? The intervention of God in human affairs speaks of incompetence." (165)
"I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed." (221)
(New York: Penguin Press, 2006)
"Does trying to understand the universe at all betray a lack of humility? I believe it is true that humility is the only just response in a confrontation with the universe, but not a humility that prevents us from seeking the nature of the universe we are admiring. If we seek that nature, then love can be informed by truth instead of being based on ignorance or self-deception. If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It or whatever the appropriate pronoun is, prefer a sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing?" (31)
"You start out the universe, you can do anything. You can see all future consequences of your present action. You want a certain desired end. Why don't you arrange it in the beginning? The intervention of God in human affairs speaks of incompetence." (165)
"I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed." (221)
(New York: Penguin Press, 2006)
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
This book was in some ways like The Fountainhead come to life. It was incredible to read quotes and anecdotes from the architects of the Chicago World Fair: about their passions, their pain, their frustrations with neverending deadlocked committees and with those who sought to modify their art. I loved how each chapter ended on a cliffhanger -- really kept the pages turning. And there's just something about turn-of-the-century America that thrills the imagination. Fun book!
This bit here made me laugh out loud at the time, though it was late at night and I was hopped up on club soda and tom collins drink mix (sans alcohol...), so maybe it's not so funny. It's not profound and not very exciting, but I just imagined these folks (including the entire city council of Chicago and other fair officials) in stuffy old suits and hats at the opening of the very first Ferris Wheel, toasting eachother and carousing:
"When Ferris blew the whistle, the [forty-piece] Iowa State band [who had also boarded the wheel] launched into 'America,' and the wheel began to turn. The group made several circuits, sipping champagne and smoking cigars, then exited the wheel to the cheers of the crowd that now thronged its base." (279)
(New York: Vintage Books, 2004)
This bit here made me laugh out loud at the time, though it was late at night and I was hopped up on club soda and tom collins drink mix (sans alcohol...), so maybe it's not so funny. It's not profound and not very exciting, but I just imagined these folks (including the entire city council of Chicago and other fair officials) in stuffy old suits and hats at the opening of the very first Ferris Wheel, toasting eachother and carousing:
"When Ferris blew the whistle, the [forty-piece] Iowa State band [who had also boarded the wheel] launched into 'America,' and the wheel began to turn. The group made several circuits, sipping champagne and smoking cigars, then exited the wheel to the cheers of the crowd that now thronged its base." (279)
(New York: Vintage Books, 2004)
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
I identified with almost every single character in this story. Lawrence gets to the heart of our emotions and intents with jaw-dropping honesty. The story offers very little in the way of happiness and much in desolation, but I couldn't put it down. Parts that roused me --
The father comes home:
"Morel, at these times, came in churlish and hateful.
'This is a nice time to come home,' said Mrs. Morel.
'Wha's it matter to yo', what time I come whoam,' he shouted.
And everybody in the house was still, because he was dangerous. He ate his food in the most brutal manner possible, and when he had done, pushed all the pots in a heap away from him, to lay his arms on the table. Then, he went to sleep.
Paul hated his father so. [...] If anyone entered suddenly, or a noise were made, the man looked up and shouted:
'I'll lay my fist about thy y'ead, I'm tellin' thee, if tha doesna stop that clatter. Dost hear!'
And the two last words, shouted in a bullying fashion, usually at Annie, made the family writhe with hate of the man.
He was shut out from all family affairs. No one told him anything. The children, alone with their mother, told her all about the day's happenings, everything. Nothing had really taken place in them, until it was told to their mother. But as soon as the father came in, everything stopped. He was like the scotch in the smooth, happy machinery of the home. And he was always aware of this fall of silence on his entry, the shutting off of life, the unwelcome. But now it was gone too far to alter." (87)
Feelings of protection towards the mother:
"He [the son], in his semi-conscious sleep, was vaguely aware of the clatter of the iron on the iron-stand, of the faint thud, thud on the ironing-board. Once, roused, he opened his eyes to see his mother standing on the hearthrug with the hot iron near her cheek, listening as it were to the heat. Her still face, with the mouth closed tight from suffering and disillusion and self-denial, and her nose the smallest bit on one side, and her blue eyes so young, quick, and warm, made his heart contract with love. When she was quiet, so, she looked brave and rich with life, but as if she had been done out of her rights. It hurt the boy keely, this feeling about her, that she had never had her life's fulfillment: and his own incapablility to make up to her hurt him with a sense of impotence..." (90-91)
other:
"There was warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge it. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She would never let herself want him. She would merely see." (260)
(1913. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
The father comes home:
"Morel, at these times, came in churlish and hateful.
'This is a nice time to come home,' said Mrs. Morel.
'Wha's it matter to yo', what time I come whoam,' he shouted.
And everybody in the house was still, because he was dangerous. He ate his food in the most brutal manner possible, and when he had done, pushed all the pots in a heap away from him, to lay his arms on the table. Then, he went to sleep.
Paul hated his father so. [...] If anyone entered suddenly, or a noise were made, the man looked up and shouted:
'I'll lay my fist about thy y'ead, I'm tellin' thee, if tha doesna stop that clatter. Dost hear!'
And the two last words, shouted in a bullying fashion, usually at Annie, made the family writhe with hate of the man.
He was shut out from all family affairs. No one told him anything. The children, alone with their mother, told her all about the day's happenings, everything. Nothing had really taken place in them, until it was told to their mother. But as soon as the father came in, everything stopped. He was like the scotch in the smooth, happy machinery of the home. And he was always aware of this fall of silence on his entry, the shutting off of life, the unwelcome. But now it was gone too far to alter." (87)
Feelings of protection towards the mother:
"He [the son], in his semi-conscious sleep, was vaguely aware of the clatter of the iron on the iron-stand, of the faint thud, thud on the ironing-board. Once, roused, he opened his eyes to see his mother standing on the hearthrug with the hot iron near her cheek, listening as it were to the heat. Her still face, with the mouth closed tight from suffering and disillusion and self-denial, and her nose the smallest bit on one side, and her blue eyes so young, quick, and warm, made his heart contract with love. When she was quiet, so, she looked brave and rich with life, but as if she had been done out of her rights. It hurt the boy keely, this feeling about her, that she had never had her life's fulfillment: and his own incapablility to make up to her hurt him with a sense of impotence..." (90-91)
other:
"There was warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge it. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She would never let herself want him. She would merely see." (260)
(1913. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
I think the shear number of tragic stories I've read in my lifetime sort of spoiled the impact of this one for me. I know it's famous and compared to the great Greek tragedies and has sold millions of copies -- yeah it is tragic and it was very interesting to be exposed to such an exotic people, with their rituals and gods and lifestyle -- but it was pretty hard for me to get past all the misogyny and random cruelty that this "great man" imposed upon his family, and I felt nothing at the conclusion.
This little passage here gives me a misplaced sense of snide self-satisfaction:
"When nearly two years later Obierika paid another visit to his friend in exile the circumstances were less happy. The missionaries had come to Umuofia. They had built their church there, won a handful of converts and were already sending evangelists to the surrounding towns and villages. That was a source of great sorrow to the leaders of the clan, but many of them believed that the strange faith and the white man's god would not last. None of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people. None of them was a man of title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efulefu, worthless, empty men. The imagery of an efulefu in the language of the clan was a man who sold his machete and wore the sheath to battle. Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, called the converts the excrement of the clan, and the new faith was a mad dog that had come to eat it up." (143)
(1958. New York: Random House, 1994)
This little passage here gives me a misplaced sense of snide self-satisfaction:
"When nearly two years later Obierika paid another visit to his friend in exile the circumstances were less happy. The missionaries had come to Umuofia. They had built their church there, won a handful of converts and were already sending evangelists to the surrounding towns and villages. That was a source of great sorrow to the leaders of the clan, but many of them believed that the strange faith and the white man's god would not last. None of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people. None of them was a man of title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efulefu, worthless, empty men. The imagery of an efulefu in the language of the clan was a man who sold his machete and wore the sheath to battle. Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, called the converts the excrement of the clan, and the new faith was a mad dog that had come to eat it up." (143)
(1958. New York: Random House, 1994)
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
"As he lay in the back of the truck, protected somewhat from the cold by Kit, now and then he was aware of the straight road beneath him. The twisting roads of the past weeks became alien, faded from his memory; it had been one strict, undeviating course inland to the desert, and now he was very nearly at the center.
How many times his friends, envying him his life, had said to him: 'Your life is so simple.' 'Your life seems always to go in a straight line.' Whenever they had said the words he heard in them an implicit reproach: it is not difficult to build a straight road on a treeless plain. He felt that what they really meant to say was: 'You have chosen the easiest terrain.' But if they elected to place obstacles in their own way -- and they so clearly did, encumbering themselves with every sort of unnecessary allegiance -- that was no reason why they should object to his having simplified his life. So it was with a certain annoynace that he would say: 'Everyone makes the life he wants. Right?' as though there were nothing further to be said." (198)
------------------
"She had quite forgotten the August afternoon only a little more than a year ago, when they had sat alone out on the grass beneath the maples, watching the thunderstorm sweep up the river valley toward them, and death had become the topic. And Port had said: 'Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.'" (238)
------------------
"Someone once had said to her that the sky hides the night behind it, shelters the person beneath from the horror that lies above. Unblinking, she fixed the solid emptiness, and the anguish began to move in her. At any moment the rip can occur, the edges fly back, and the giant maw be revealed." (312)
(1949. New York : Harper Collins, 1998)
How many times his friends, envying him his life, had said to him: 'Your life is so simple.' 'Your life seems always to go in a straight line.' Whenever they had said the words he heard in them an implicit reproach: it is not difficult to build a straight road on a treeless plain. He felt that what they really meant to say was: 'You have chosen the easiest terrain.' But if they elected to place obstacles in their own way -- and they so clearly did, encumbering themselves with every sort of unnecessary allegiance -- that was no reason why they should object to his having simplified his life. So it was with a certain annoynace that he would say: 'Everyone makes the life he wants. Right?' as though there were nothing further to be said." (198)
------------------
"She had quite forgotten the August afternoon only a little more than a year ago, when they had sat alone out on the grass beneath the maples, watching the thunderstorm sweep up the river valley toward them, and death had become the topic. And Port had said: 'Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.'" (238)
------------------
"Someone once had said to her that the sky hides the night behind it, shelters the person beneath from the horror that lies above. Unblinking, she fixed the solid emptiness, and the anguish began to move in her. At any moment the rip can occur, the edges fly back, and the giant maw be revealed." (312)
(1949. New York : Harper Collins, 1998)
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
"Most of us can't rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that many friends. The things you're looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore." (86)
"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at the tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away." (157)
(1953. New York: Del Rey, 1987)
"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at the tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away." (157)
(1953. New York: Del Rey, 1987)
Monday, May 7, 2007
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
"And are you sorry?" she said.
"In a way!" he replied, looking up at the sky. "I thought I'd done with it all. Now I've begun again."
"Begun what?"
"Life."
"Life!" she re-echoed, with a queer thrill.
"It's life," he said. "There's no keeping clear. And if you do keep clear you might almost as well die. So if I've got to be broken open again, I have." (110)
"Well, so many words, because I can't touch you. If I could sleep with my arms round you, the ink could stay in the bottle." (282-283)
(1928. New York: Signet Classic, 1959)
"In a way!" he replied, looking up at the sky. "I thought I'd done with it all. Now I've begun again."
"Begun what?"
"Life."
"Life!" she re-echoed, with a queer thrill.
"It's life," he said. "There's no keeping clear. And if you do keep clear you might almost as well die. So if I've got to be broken open again, I have." (110)
"Well, so many words, because I can't touch you. If I could sleep with my arms round you, the ink could stay in the bottle." (282-283)
(1928. New York: Signet Classic, 1959)
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
"Months of boredom had subdued him to intoxication by an experience which, at another time, might itself have bored him." (60)
(1963. Oxford : ISIS Large Print, 1986)
(1963. Oxford : ISIS Large Print, 1986)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Reviews of this book place it as one of Spark's very best, but personally I found it dull and far less engaging than the other novels of hers I've read. Miss Brodie was not in any way a sympathetic character, and the girls were just your typical impressionable youthful pawns/guinea pigs. I was rather disgusted by the whole book, to be honest. Here is one of the few moments where I did enjoy reading this:
"Towards the end of the Easter holidays, to crown the sex-laden year, Jenny, out walking alone, was accosted by a man joyfully exposing himself beside the Water of Leith. He said, 'Come and look at this.'
'At what?' said Jenny, moving closer, thinking to herself he had picked up a fallen nestling from the ground or had discovered a strange plant. Having perceived the truth, she escaped unharmed and unpursued, though breathless, and was presently surrounded by solicitous, horrified relations and was coaxed to sip tea well sugared against the shock." (82)
(New York: Dell Publishing, 1961)
"Towards the end of the Easter holidays, to crown the sex-laden year, Jenny, out walking alone, was accosted by a man joyfully exposing himself beside the Water of Leith. He said, 'Come and look at this.'
'At what?' said Jenny, moving closer, thinking to herself he had picked up a fallen nestling from the ground or had discovered a strange plant. Having perceived the truth, she escaped unharmed and unpursued, though breathless, and was presently surrounded by solicitous, horrified relations and was coaxed to sip tea well sugared against the shock." (82)
(New York: Dell Publishing, 1961)
Sunday, April 8, 2007
The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi
"There is no proportion between the pity we feel and the extent of the pain by which the pity is aroused: a single Anne Frank excites more emotion than the myriads who suffered as she did but whose image has remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is necessary that it can be so. If we had to and were able to suffer the sufferings of everyone, we could not live. Perhaps the dreadful gift of pity for the many is granted only to saints; to the Monatti, to the members of the Special Squad, and to all of us there remains in the best of cases only the sporadic pity addressed to the single individual, the Mitmensch, the co-man: the human being of flesh and blood standing before us, within the reach of our providentially myopic senses." (56)
(Trans. Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Vintage International, 1989)
(Trans. Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Vintage International, 1989)
Thursday, April 5, 2007
To Destroy You is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family by JoAn D. Criddle
"When we first arrived in Khum Speu village, men and boys had joined wholeheartedly in soccer matches after a hard day's work, but soon these games were prohibited. Players were told that if they had energy enough to play, then they had energy enough to work longer hours. Angka claimed that it was wrong to waste 'the water that comes from the skin' when it could be expended instead in productive labor. Sweat was to be spent in useful work, not decadent play." (63)
"Dissatisfied with our makeshift huts, people were anxious to qualify for better housing. Some even volunteered information about themselves to prove they belonged to the favored groups allowed to move. Over three million took part in this migration.
In the past, people had been suspicious of the calls for workers, since most men failed to return. We had concluded that such calls were often a ruse to permanently remove selected individuals. However, this new resettlement call for entire familes was viewed differently; it matched our expectations for a return to normality. Conditions had to be better in newly constructed villages, we'd reasoned. Perhaps families would be reunited with missing fathers and husbands after all. Tossed a crumb of hope, we built a feast of optimism.
Close friends and relatives, who did not want to be separated from each other, had timidly asked to be allowed to resettle with those who had been called to transfer. To our surprise, many had been allowed to leave. Most of us jumped to the conclusion that this new leniency must be a turning point toward a decrease in arbitrary rule.
[...] Told to leave bulky household possessions behind, since the new villages had everything provided, those who qualified had willingly lined up to board the waiting vehicles with only a few personal belongings.
Ox carts, trucks, and buses arrived on the appointed day in each village; the average-sized truck held about eighty people. Each vehicle filled rapidly and pulled out of village squares amid tears and cheering.
Typically, a few miles from the village, the vehicles stopped along a tree-lined road. Greeted by stirring music, blaring from loudspeakers, people eagerly piled out of the trucks and lined up to register. A handful of soldiers escorted the women and children, a few at a time, down the winding forest paths or through the abandoned rubber plantations. Hurrying behind the soldiers, excited villagers wondered aloud about their new village.
Upon arrival in the clearing, they hesitated, then tried to retreat. Before them gaped newly dug trenches, an abandoned reservoir, a well, or an old mine shaft. Horrified, villagers were ordered at gunpoint to line up. Their elbows were tied behind their backs with red cord and they were made to kneel along the open trench. Dumbfounded, most obeyed without complaint or struggle. Soldiers administered a quick blow to the back of the head or neck with a heavy wooden hoe or a machete. Each soldier was able to kill villagers at the rate of twenty to thirty per minute with little noise or wasted bullets. The red parachute cords were retrieved for future use.
After the women and children were dispatched, their husbands and fathers were ushered into the clearings. Seeing their massacred loved ones, their own will to live weakened. Most submitted in mute silence, kneeled, and were clubbed.
[...] During French colonial rule, hundred of exploratory mine shafts had been sunk in the plantations as men searched for gemstones. These old shafts were over one hundred feet deep; the bottom could not be seen from the upper edge. Truckload after truckload of victims was dumped into each shaft. When soldiers finished, the shafts, reservoirs, and wells of Cambodia were full." (144-146)
"When the mass graves were finally discovered, the justification given us by Angka for killing women and children was that anyone associated with a "guilty person" [the educated; anyone literate; skilled workers (plumbers, technicians, etc); old government officials; anyone who had lived and worked and been schooled in the cities, basically] was tainted.
Keang had information that eventually everyone over the age of twelve at the time of the takover was ultimately scheduled to be killed [...]. Then there would be left only pliable youth who did not remember the former way of life and had no training or ability to organize resistance against Angka and its plans for a 'perfect society'." (147)
(2nd Edition. Auke Bay: East/West Bridge, 1998)
A very succinct history of what happened: http://www.dithpran.org/killingfields.htm
"Dissatisfied with our makeshift huts, people were anxious to qualify for better housing. Some even volunteered information about themselves to prove they belonged to the favored groups allowed to move. Over three million took part in this migration.
In the past, people had been suspicious of the calls for workers, since most men failed to return. We had concluded that such calls were often a ruse to permanently remove selected individuals. However, this new resettlement call for entire familes was viewed differently; it matched our expectations for a return to normality. Conditions had to be better in newly constructed villages, we'd reasoned. Perhaps families would be reunited with missing fathers and husbands after all. Tossed a crumb of hope, we built a feast of optimism.
Close friends and relatives, who did not want to be separated from each other, had timidly asked to be allowed to resettle with those who had been called to transfer. To our surprise, many had been allowed to leave. Most of us jumped to the conclusion that this new leniency must be a turning point toward a decrease in arbitrary rule.
[...] Told to leave bulky household possessions behind, since the new villages had everything provided, those who qualified had willingly lined up to board the waiting vehicles with only a few personal belongings.
Ox carts, trucks, and buses arrived on the appointed day in each village; the average-sized truck held about eighty people. Each vehicle filled rapidly and pulled out of village squares amid tears and cheering.
Typically, a few miles from the village, the vehicles stopped along a tree-lined road. Greeted by stirring music, blaring from loudspeakers, people eagerly piled out of the trucks and lined up to register. A handful of soldiers escorted the women and children, a few at a time, down the winding forest paths or through the abandoned rubber plantations. Hurrying behind the soldiers, excited villagers wondered aloud about their new village.
Upon arrival in the clearing, they hesitated, then tried to retreat. Before them gaped newly dug trenches, an abandoned reservoir, a well, or an old mine shaft. Horrified, villagers were ordered at gunpoint to line up. Their elbows were tied behind their backs with red cord and they were made to kneel along the open trench. Dumbfounded, most obeyed without complaint or struggle. Soldiers administered a quick blow to the back of the head or neck with a heavy wooden hoe or a machete. Each soldier was able to kill villagers at the rate of twenty to thirty per minute with little noise or wasted bullets. The red parachute cords were retrieved for future use.
After the women and children were dispatched, their husbands and fathers were ushered into the clearings. Seeing their massacred loved ones, their own will to live weakened. Most submitted in mute silence, kneeled, and were clubbed.
[...] During French colonial rule, hundred of exploratory mine shafts had been sunk in the plantations as men searched for gemstones. These old shafts were over one hundred feet deep; the bottom could not be seen from the upper edge. Truckload after truckload of victims was dumped into each shaft. When soldiers finished, the shafts, reservoirs, and wells of Cambodia were full." (144-146)
"When the mass graves were finally discovered, the justification given us by Angka for killing women and children was that anyone associated with a "guilty person" [the educated; anyone literate; skilled workers (plumbers, technicians, etc); old government officials; anyone who had lived and worked and been schooled in the cities, basically] was tainted.
Keang had information that eventually everyone over the age of twelve at the time of the takover was ultimately scheduled to be killed [...]. Then there would be left only pliable youth who did not remember the former way of life and had no training or ability to organize resistance against Angka and its plans for a 'perfect society'." (147)
(2nd Edition. Auke Bay: East/West Bridge, 1998)
A very succinct history of what happened: http://www.dithpran.org/killingfields.htm
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