Wednesday, April 27, 2011
All our lives are symbols. Everything we do is part of a pattern we have at least some say in. The strong make their own patterns and influence other people’s, the weak have their courses mapped out for them. The weak and the unlucky, and the stupid. The Wasp Factory is part of the pattern because it is a part of life and—even more so—part of death. Like life it is complicated, so all the components are there. The reason it can answer questions is because every question is a start looking for an end and the Factory is about the end—death, no less. Keep your entrails and sticks and dice and books and birds and voices and pendants and all the rest of that crap; I have the Factory, and it’s about now and the future, not the past.
—Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory
The sun went, and it was dark. He sat beside her in the comfortable darkness and they listened, contentedly, to the sounds of Africa settling down for the night. A dog barked somewhere; a car engine raced and then died away; there was a touch of wind, warm dusty wind, redolent of thorn trees.
He looked at her in the darkness, at this woman who was everything to him—mother, Africa, wisdom, understanding, good things to eat, pumpkins, chicken, the smell of sweet cattle breath, the white sky across the endless, endless bush, and the giraffe that cried, giving its tears for women to daub on their baskets; O Botswana, my country, my place.
Those were his thoughts. But how could he say any of that to her? Any time he tried to tell her what was in his heart, the words which came to him seemed so inadequate. A mechanic cannot be a poet, he thought, that is not how things are.
—Alexander McCall Smith, The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Titus, addressing outnumbered Roman soldiers at Tarichaeae, in Palestine:
My own feeling is that at this moment my father is on trial, so am I, and so are you. Does he deserve his past triumphs? Do I deserve to be his son, and you to be my soldiers? With him victory is a habit. I could not bear to return to him defeated; would you not be ashamed if your commander led the way into danger and you failed to follow?
—Josephus, The Jewish War
By now all the school-children were coming out of the school, pouring down the road to stop in sight of us and there to cry out in a low soft voice: “Msabu. Are you there? Are you there? Msabu, Msabu.”
I sat on a lion and cried back to them: “Yes I am.”
Then they went on, louder and more boldly: “Has Bedâr shot the lions? Both two?” When they found that it was so, they were at once all over the place, like a swarm of small spring-hares of the night, jumping up and down. They, then and there, made a song upon the event; it ran as follows: “Three shots. Two lions. Three shots. Two lions.” They embroidered and embellished it as they sang it, one clear voice falling in after the other: “Three good shots, two big strong bad kali lions.” And then they all joined into an intoxicated refrain: “A. B. C. D.”,—because they came straight from the school, and had their heads filled with wisdom.
—Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa
The cousin was a pensive girl with red-brown eyes, she could read Arabic and knew passages of the Koran by heart. She was of a theological turn of mind, and we had many religious discussions and talks about the wonders of the world. From her I learned the true paraphrase of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. She would admit Jesus Christ to have been born of a virgin, but not as the son of God, for God could have no sons in the flesh. Mariammo, who was the loveliest of maidens, had been walking in the garden, and a great angel, sent by the Lord, with his wingfeather had touched her shoulder, from this she conceived. In the course of our debates I one day showed her a picture postcard of Thorvaldsen’s statue of Christ, in the Cathedral of Copenhagen. Upon that she fell in love, in a gentle and ecstatic way, with the Saviour. She could never hear enough about him, she sighed and changed colour as I narrated. About Judas she was much concerned,—what sort of man was he, how could there be people like that?—she herself would be only too happy to scratch out his eyes. It was a great passion, in the nature of the incense which they burned in their houses, and which, made from dark wood grown upon distant mountains, is sweet and strange to our senses.
—Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa
The old woman, Farah’s mother-in-law, was, Farah told me, in her own country held in high esteem on account of the excellent education which she had given her daughters. They were there the glass of fashion and the mould of maidenly form. Indeed here were three young women of the most exquisite dignity and demureness; I have never known ladies more ladylike. Their maiden modesty was accentuated by the style of their clothes. They wore skirts of imposing amplitude, it took, I know,—for I have often bought silk or calico for them,—ten yards of material to make one of them. Inside these masses of stuff their slim knees moved in an insinuating and mysterious rhythm: Tes nobles jambes, sous les volants qu’elles chassent Tourmentent les desirs obscurs et les agacent, Comme deux sorcieres qui font Toumer un philtre noir dans un vase profond.
The mother herself was an impressive figure, very stout, with the powerful and benevolent placidity of a female elephant, contented in her strength. I have never seen her angry. Teachers and pedagogues ought to have envied her that great inspiring quality which she had in her; in her hands education was no compulsion, and no drudgery, but a great noble conspiracy into which her pupils were by privilege admitted. The little house, that I had built for them in the woods, was a small High-school of White Magic, and the three young girls, who walked so gently upon the forest-paths round it, were like three young witches who were studying at it as hard as they could, for at the end of their apprenticeship great mightiness would be theirs. They were competing in excellency in a congenial spirit; probably where you are in reality upon the market, and have your price openly discussed, rivalry takes on a frank and honest character. Farah’s wife, who was no longer in suspense as to her price, was holding a special position, like that of the good Pupil who has already obtained a scholarship in witchcraft; she might be observed in confidential talks with the old Head Magician, and such an honour never fell to the maidens.
—Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
“You want a Rolls Royce, you go to England or wherever the fuck they make it,” Fat Mancho said. “You want champagne, you go see the French. You want money, find a Jew. But you want dirt, scum buried under a rock, a secret nobody wants anybody to know, you want that and you want that fast, there’s only one place to go—Hell’s kitchen. It’s the lost and found of shit. They lose it and we find it.”
—Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers