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Goethe thought that if only Europe had considered Homer and not the books of the Bible as its holy scripture, the whole of history would have been different, and better.
“But your wife is dead,” said Reiter. “I had a son and a daughter,” Reiter heard him whisper, “but they died too. My son in the battle of Kursk and my daughter during a bombing raid on Hamburg.” “Don’t you have any other relatives?” asked Reiter. “Two little grandchildren, twins, a girl and a boy, but they died in the same raid.” “Good God,” said Reiter. “My son-in-law died too, not in the raid, but days later, from sorrow at the death of his wife and children.” “That’s terrible,” said Reiter. “He killed himself by taking rat poison,” whispered Zeller in the dark. “He suffered agonies for three days before he died.”
― 2666
― 2666
“him. He had connections here, of course, and that was the problem. His mind sensed the lives lost to make the unlovely Dawn of Fire, the many thousands of humans living in squalor required to keep it running. No matter how comfortable he made his chambers, and there were definite limits to that, he felt as if he were dwelling in a pavilion erected upon a platform, and though the pavilion was very fine, beneath the platform squirmed piles of vermin feeding desperately upon each other in the dark.”
― The Silent King
― The Silent King
“As far as I can tell, every family produces its solitary misfit, its psychotic mirror image of all the ghosts summoned out of the small or large hells of childhood, the spiller of the apple cart, the jack of spades, the black-hearted knight, the shit stirrer, the sibling with the uncontrollable tongue, the father brutal by habit, the uncle who tried to feel up his nieces, the aunt too neurotic ever to leave home.”
― The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son
― The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son
“Not a single family finds itself exempt from that one haunted casualty who suffered irreparable damage in the crucible they entered at birth. Where some children can emerge from conditions of soul-killing abuse and manage to make their lives into something of worth and value, others can’t limp away from the hurts and gleanings time decanted for them in flawed beakers of memory.”
― The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son
― The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son
“The capital P has no bearing on the PTSD of Israel. The dread of extinction is the white noise the people continuously try to ignore – continuously, because the dread of extinction is punctually refreshed. Following the Holocaust, within three years of the Holocaust, what starts to happen? Independence Day was proclaimed on May 15, 1948, and on May 16, 1948, five Arab armies launched what was avowedly a Vernichtungskrieg, a war of annihilation (its failure was the original Arab nakba – ‘catastrophe’). The same applied in June 1967 (the Six Day War) and in October 1973 (the Yom Kippur War)…In January 1991 the existential threat came from Saddam Hussein; during the first Gulf War, Tel Aviv was bombarded by Iraqi missiles, and Israeli families sat in sealed rooms with German-made gas masks covering their faces. In March 2002, with the Second Intifada, the threat came from the Palestinians. Now the threat comes from Gaza, and from the overarching prospect of nuclear weapons in Iran… To understate the obvious, this is not a formula for radiant mental health. And if there’s a scintilla of truth in the notion that countries are like people, then it is vain to expect Israel to behave normatively or even rationally. The question is not, How can you expect it, after all that? The question is, After all that, why do you expect it?”
― Inside Story
― Inside Story
Q&A with Zak Smith
— 12 members
— last activity May 16, 2009 04:39PM
...April 18, 2009 to May 18, 2009... Zak will be answering any and all questions about his upcoming book, what kind of paint thinner he uses, or anyt ...more
Benjamin’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Benjamin’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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651 books
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885 books
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536 books
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992 books
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67 books
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175 books
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