Summer Snippets…
Posted on July 1st, 2007 in of interest
Empire of the Sun, J.G. Ballard:
Jim watched Mr. Maxted sink back among the exhausted prisoners. He had made his last effort to sit upright, trying to convince Jim that all was well, that the good luck and the skill of some unknown American bomb aimer, which had saved them from being shipped aboard the collier, would continue to watch over them.
“Mr. Maxted, do you want the war to end? It must end soon.”
“It has almost ended. Think about your mother and father, Jim. The war has ended.”
“But Mr. Maxted, when will the next one begin…?”
Baudolino, Umberto Eco:
“Which is the most fierce of animals?” the Poet asked then.
“Man.”
“Why?”
“Ask yourself. You, too, are a wild beast, you have with you other beasts, and in your lust for power you want to deprive all other beasts of life.”
Then the Poet said: “But if all were like you, the sea would never be sailed, the earth would never be tilled, the great kingdoms would not be born to carry order and greatness into the base disorder of earthly things.”
The old man replied: “Each of these things is surely fortunate, but it is built on the misfortune of others, and that we do not desire.”
