"The question that obsesses me at this moment of mortal peril is perverse in the extreme, and one that goes against all the strictures and nostrums of our time. I feel silly even thinking such a question, for it is evidently only the product of a greatly distressed mind, but I must put it into words.
"Is there life after youth?"
Richard Flanagan
Death of a River Guide
We hovered on the tarmac beneath a storm. We flew through a thicket of clouds. Far past midnight the plane came down, and the winds have blown, and the clouds have gathered, and every now and again there has been sun.
While in Iowa, a terrible tragedy. While in Wyoming the air is angry. While we all go on, living as we have, watching the skies, wondering what it means for now, what it means for all the days from now.
In between looking up, I have been looking down, at some of the most extraordinary, nearly brutally brilliant books I've read in a very long time: DEATH OF A RIVER GUIDE. THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO. THE GATHERING.
We go away to get away from our own smallness. To be awakened again. By books. By weather.
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