Utsob Roy
A bet between God and the Devil. A shrewdness beyond comprehension to the mind of a man. A tragedy.
If only this were the case, the oldest of all stories of Christianity, then Goethe probably wouldn't have ventured to write Faust.
Faust is a blueprint. A blueprint of tragedy that an intellectual, curious, and rigorous philosopher may have to navigate in his life.
At the beginning, when we meet Faust the polymath, he was in Loevinger’s Ego Development Stage 4/5 (Self-Questioning/Individualist/Pluralist). The notions of reality and truth are fractured, yet not in complete disharmony. We can find the evidence for it in Scene IV:
This life of earth, whatever my attire, Would pain me in its wonted fashion. Too old am I to play with passion; Too young, to be without desire.
and,
The God that in my breast is owned Can deeply stir the inner sources; The God, above my powers enthroned, He cannot change external forces. So, by the burden of my days oppressed, Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest!
This stage comes with acute existential dread and distress, as Goethe portrayed them so faithfully.
We need to make a clear distinction here. This distress is not the work of the Devil. Every sincere person, at some point in their life, must stomach this. In consensus, Christianity allows free will; therefore, free exploration of knowledge is allowed. With that exploration, considering the depth and breadth a philosopher may navigate, comes obvious distress.
At this lowest of the moments, Faust made a pact with Mephistopheles. Here, we can see the brilliance of Faust's mind. While Mephistopheles wanted to give all possible earthly pleasure in return for his soul, Faust's counter-offer was to forfeit his soul only when he is content. And if you consider his state of mind at this point, bringing contentment to him is a formidable task, even for Mephistopheles— if Mephistopheles is a man.
But Mephistopheles is no man. While a man, with his short span of life, and probably by the very architecture of our mind, cannot help thinking from the perspective where we are the centre of everything. This egocentrism is the Devil's playground. He runs a whole gamut of tests on all of our feelings to catch us off guard:
MEPHISTOPHELES Yes, thou findest that unpleasant! Thou hast the moral right to cry me "shame!" at present. One dares not that before chaste ears declare, Which chaste hearts, notwithstanding, cannot spare; And, once for all, I grudge thee not the pleasure Of lying to thyself in moderate measure.
Indeed, he is right when he declares:
MEPHISTOPHELES Poor Son of Earth, how couldst thou thus alone Have led thy life, bereft of me?
For he is the first rebel in the Bible, and he, also, is the scapegoat for all our dubitable actions.
But Mephistopheles is an egoist too. Soon, it became a chess match of ego. In every turn, one superseding another's strategy. Although by narrow means, Faust conquered all the traps and lures. You may disagree with me on this point. But this conquering happens in such a bloody, agonising way that it often may feel like a defeat.
We can see their battle externalised in Walpurgis Night:
Tell me, if we still are standing, Or if further we're ascending? All is turning, whirling, blending, Trees and rocks with grinning faces, Wandering lights that spin in mazes, Still increasing and expanding! MEPHISTOPHELES Grasp my skirt with heart undaunted! Here a middle–peak is planted, Whence one seeth, with amaze, Mammon in the mountain blaze.
First, we find Faust's mind-bending philosophical investigation being externalised by a metaphor of Will-O-Wisp.
Then we see the satanic promise of remedy, but not through philosophy, but through materialism, by promising Mammon's treasure.
Despite every attempt, despite a tragic end, we can see Faust keeping his intellectual sovereignty intact. A prime example of this is when Gretchen, the innocent lover of Faust, asked him about his faith; he replied:
FAUST My darling, who shall dare "I believe in God!" to say? Ask priest or sage the answer to declare, And it will seem a mocking play, A sarcasm on the asker.
This is not a lack of faith, but a sincerity. A sincerity that the person should show if his faith or belief is not handed down to him and accepted as is.
Faust was right in thinking that Mephistopheles, indeed, cannot make him content. No worldly pleasure (or, even woe) can deter him, ultimately, from the philosophical distress of his soul, a tragedy most intimate, a tragedy wrought in his soul, which no diversion can touch.
It was a stalemate, at least, at the end of this book.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
A bet between God and the Devil. A shrewdness beyond comprehension to the mind of a man. A tragedy.
If only this were the case, the oldest of all stories of Christianity, then Goethe probably wouldn't have ventured to write Faust.
Faust is a blueprint. A blueprint of tragedy that an intellectual, curious, and rigorous philosopher may have to navigate in his life.
At the beginning, when we meet Faust the polymath, he was in Loevinger’s Ego Development Stage 4/5 (Self-Questioning/Individualist/Pluralist). The notions of reality and truth are fractured, yet not in complete disharmony. We can find the evidence for it in Scene IV:
This life of earth, whatever my attire, Would pain me in its wonted fashion. Too old am I to play with passion; Too young, to be without desire.
and,
The God that in my breast is owned Can deeply stir the inner sources; The God, above my powers enthroned, He cannot change external forces. So, by the burden of my days oppressed, Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest!
This stage comes with acute existential dread and distress, as Goethe portrayed them so faithfully.
We need to make a clear distinction here. This distress is not the work of the Devil. Every sincere person, at some point in their life, must stomach this. In consensus, Christianity allows free will; therefore, free exploration of knowledge is allowed. With that exploration, considering the depth and breadth a philosopher may navigate, comes obvious distress.
At this lowest of the moments, Faust made a pact with Mephistopheles. Here, we can see the brilliance of Faust's mind. While Mephistopheles wanted to give all possible earthly pleasure in return for his soul, Faust's counter-offer was to forfeit his soul only when he is content. And if you consider his state of mind at this point, bringing contentment to him is a formidable task, even for Mephistopheles— if Mephistopheles is a man.
But Mephistopheles is no man. While a man, with his short span of life, and probably by the very architecture of our mind, cannot help thinking from the perspective where we are the centre of everything. This egocentrism is the Devil's playground. He runs a whole gamut of tests on all of our feelings to catch us off guard:
MEPHISTOPHELES Yes, thou findest that unpleasant! Thou hast the moral right to cry me "shame!" at present. One dares not that before chaste ears declare, Which chaste hearts, notwithstanding, cannot spare; And, once for all, I grudge thee not the pleasure Of lying to thyself in moderate measure.
Indeed, he is right when he declares:
MEPHISTOPHELES Poor Son of Earth, how couldst thou thus alone Have led thy life, bereft of me?
For he is the first rebel in the Bible, and he, also, is the scapegoat for all our dubitable actions.
But Mephistopheles is an egoist too. Soon, it became a chess match of ego. In every turn, one superseding another's strategy. Although by narrow means, Faust conquered all the traps and lures. You may disagree with me on this point. But this conquering happens in such a bloody, agonising way that it often may feel like a defeat.
We can see their battle externalised in Walpurgis Night:
Tell me, if we still are standing, Or if further we're ascending? All is turning, whirling, blending, Trees and rocks with grinning faces, Wandering lights that spin in mazes, Still increasing and expanding! MEPHISTOPHELES Grasp my skirt with heart undaunted! Here a middle–peak is planted, Whence one seeth, with amaze, Mammon in the mountain blaze.
First, we find Faust's mind-bending philosophical investigation being externalised by a metaphor of Will-O-Wisp.
Then we see the satanic promise of remedy, but not through philosophy, but through materialism, by promising Mammon's treasure.
Despite every attempt, despite a tragic end, we can see Faust keeping his intellectual sovereignty intact. A prime example of this is when Gretchen, the innocent lover of Faust, asked him about his faith; he replied:
FAUST My darling, who shall dare "I believe in God!" to say? Ask priest or sage the answer to declare, And it will seem a mocking play, A sarcasm on the asker.
This is not a lack of faith, but a sincerity. A sincerity that the person should show if his faith or belief is not handed down to him and accepted as is.
Faust was right in thinking that Mephistopheles, indeed, cannot make him content. No worldly pleasure (or, even woe) can deter him, ultimately, from the philosophical distress of his soul, a tragedy most intimate, a tragedy wrought in his soul, which no diversion can touch.
It was a stalemate, at least, at the end of this book.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
This is an autobiographical work; therefore, what the author was thinking is much more important than the literary quality. But again, all a writer could do is write themselves. So this is also about the style.
What I found about him reading this one is that Hemingway is a man deeply embedded in reality. A person who likes people, cats, dogs, and children, and wants to write a really good story. That is all that matters to him. I never found him philosophising beyond the level that the first interaction allows him to. Text is not dense, but superbly tactile. And somehow, he can make the emotions tactile too.
Hemingway's brand of realism has, unfortunately, become a mundane genre in the hands of his successors. Their shallow sense of reality did great disservice to the genre. That is why they never could've produced a line like this:
The trees were sculpture without their leaves when you were reconciled to them,
Or, three lines so dense that they cover a whole gamut of class-conflict, longing, baseness, hostility, and charming sarcasm:
“I just came in to have a drink. What’s wrong with that?” “At home they’d serve you and then break the glass.” “Where’s home? It sounds like a charming place.”
Another thing that many realist writers cannot do is widen the reality. Here's an example:
With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.
In their narrow sense of reality, they completely ignore the most interesting aspect of reality— temporality. They act as if they are buffers on a tape and caught by the temporality of the story itself, and possess neither the capacity for retrospection, nor the prescience. Their story, in turn, feels like frames in a film I am holding in my hand instead of a movie I see.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
This is an autobiographical work; therefore, what the author was thinking is much more important than the literary quality. But again, all a writer could do is write themselves. So this is also about the style.
What I found about him reading this one is that Hemingway is a man deeply embedded in reality. A person who likes people, cats, dogs, and children, and wants to write a really good story. That is all that matters to him. I never found him philosophising beyond the level that the first interaction allows him to. Text is not dense, but superbly tactile. And somehow, he can make the emotions tactile too.
Hemingway's brand of realism has, unfortunately, become a mundane genre in the hands of his successors. Their shallow sense of reality did great disservice to the genre. That is why they never could've produced a line like this:
The trees were sculpture without their leaves when you were reconciled to them,
Or, three lines so dense that they cover a whole gamut of class-conflict, longing, baseness, hostility, and charming sarcasm:
“I just came in to have a drink. What’s wrong with that?” “At home they’d serve you and then break the glass.” “Where’s home? It sounds like a charming place.”
Another thing that many realist writers cannot do is widen the reality. Here's an example:
With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.
In their narrow sense of reality, they completely ignore the most interesting aspect of reality— temporality. They act as if they are buffers on a tape and caught by the temporality of the story itself, and possess neither the capacity for retrospection, nor the prescience. Their story, in turn, feels like frames in a film I am holding in my hand instead of a movie I see.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
Updated a reading goal:
Read 24 books in 2026
Progress so far: 6 / 24 25%
Consider one of your senses, not even the most important one— vision, but a minor one like smell, gone! Imagine a world of smell barred from you. Not reading Dostoevsky is just like that, not developing a sense.
And, his final novel, his magnum opus— The Brothers Karamazov, branches out new senses and intellectual capacities like an energetic sprout in your mind.
This book is deeply philosophical. But, like novels of the later period, like Remembrance of Things Past, the author is not living the philosophy (existentialism in this case), but explains it in detail in the author's voice. Let me enumerate the ideas being covered: Christianity and related concepts of sins, soul, free will, and kindness, psychology, law and jurisprudence, and life through his infinite lenses.
He is, in a sense, the sincerest novelist I have encountered. Ivan is one of the most powerful atheist characters I have ever read of, that too, in a novel about Christianity.
The first part is deeply about Christianity, or, to be specific, Dostoevsky's interpretation of Eastern Orthodoxy. In his mind, suffering and joy are intertwined, as if one joyfully suffers in a feast of suffering.
While The Grand Inquisitor remains the most intense of all chapters in the novel, the ultimate, and deeper question posed at the end of the book is the nature of crime.
The rest contains spoilers
Dimitri didn't kill his father. He merely wanted to kill him, for very real reasons, but never attempted it. Ivan wanted to get rid of his father, deep down, without making his hands dirty, of course, being an intelligent man. But all brothers, including Alyosha, never really liked their father, and if not killing him directly, would've found the world a better place without him.
If you accuse Ivan of his deadly despise, well… all the brothers are guilty of that. Yet, none was guilty enough, not because of the lack of action, not because of how they were brought up, leaving them less guilty, but because they never really wanted to profit from the murder. Yet, they bear guilt too, in their soul, for the flick of moments they despised their father.
But, Smerdyakov, the vile and the crook, and the veritable villain to the core of his heart, is really a complete villain. He has every reason to despise the old man, and probably more than the legitimate children. Cannot his bright future really be traded against the person who is not only the reason for his sufferings, but is also completely oblivious to that and bears no regrets and three thousand roubles?
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
Consider one of your senses, not even the most important one— vision, but a minor one like smell, gone! Imagine a world of smell barred from you. Not reading Dostoevsky is just like that, not developing a sense.
And, his final novel, his magnum opus— The Brothers Karamazov, branches out new senses and intellectual capacities like an energetic sprout in your mind.
This book is deeply philosophical. But, like novels of the later period, like Remembrance of Things Past, the author is not living the philosophy (existentialism in this case), but explains it in detail in the author's voice. Let me enumerate the ideas being covered: Christianity and related concepts of sins, soul, free will, and kindness, psychology, law and jurisprudence, and life through his infinite lenses.
He is, in a sense, the sincerest novelist I have encountered. Ivan is one of the most powerful atheist characters I have ever read of, that too, in a novel about Christianity.
The first part is deeply about Christianity, or, to be specific, Dostoevsky's interpretation of Eastern Orthodoxy. In his mind, suffering and joy are intertwined, as if one joyfully suffers in a feast of suffering.
While The Grand Inquisitor remains the most intense of all chapters in the novel, the ultimate, and deeper question posed at the end of the book is the nature of crime.
The rest contains spoilers
Dimitri didn't kill his father. He merely wanted to kill him, for very real reasons, but never attempted it. Ivan wanted to get rid of his father, deep down, without making his hands dirty, of course, being an intelligent man. But all brothers, including Alyosha, never really liked their father, and if not killing him directly, would've found the world a better place without him.
If you accuse Ivan of his deadly despise, well… all the brothers are guilty of that. Yet, none was guilty enough, not because of the lack of action, not because of how they were brought up, leaving them less guilty, but because they never really wanted to profit from the murder. Yet, they bear guilt too, in their soul, for the flick of moments they despised their father.
But, Smerdyakov, the vile and the crook, and the veritable villain to the core of his heart, is really a complete villain. He has every reason to despise the old man, and probably more than the legitimate children. Cannot his bright future really be traded against the person who is not only the reason for his sufferings, but is also completely oblivious to that and bears no regrets and three thousand roubles?
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
TL;DR: Derrida introduced Differance (notice the a instead of e) as a concept of creating differences over time. It is temporal.
While TL;DRs are good in the short term and nice to know, and will get us some nerd points in society, to understand the importance of this concept, one has to not only read this 24-page essay, but also a substantial part of the materials mentioned there.
So, on one hand, we have our plain, old difference. We use it all the time. This means two entities are not the same. But, this newly introduced differance is the process that works in our world over time and creates the differences, often of the same thing.
It is important to understand that differance doesn't exist, we can only see differences made by it. We cannot even bring it into existence because that will actually dissolve it.
Now, how am I to speak of the a of differance? It is clear that it cannot be exposed. We can expose only what, at a certain moment, can become present, manifest; what can be shown, presented as a present, a being-present in its truth, the truth of a present or the presence of a present. However, if differance is (I also cross out the “is”) what makes the presentation of being-present possible, it never presents itself as such. It is never given in the present or to anyone. Holding back and not exposing itself, it goes beyond the order of truth on this specific point and in this determined way, yet is not itself concealed, as if it were something, a mysterious being, in the occult zone of the nonknowing. Any exposition would expose it to disappearing as a disappearance. It would risk appearing, thus disappearing.
This also means that it is not how God has been defined in the negative theology.
Now, let's think about why this concept is important or interesting. First, let's consider this passage:
It was Saussure who first of all set forth the arbitrariness of signs and the differential character of signs as principles of general semiology and particularly of linguistics. And, as we know, these two themes—the arbitrary and the differential—are in his view inseparable. Arbitrariness can occur only because the system of signs is constituted by the differences between the terms, and not by their fullness. The elements of signification function not by virtue of the compact force of their cores but by the network of oppositions that distinguish them and relate them to one another. “Arbitrary and differential” says Saussure “are two correlative qualities.”
It means our knowledge about this world, all the categorisations we have in our head, so that we can distinguish this or that, is not based on our comprehensive knowledge of things. Instead, we know too little, but we know the differences between things. So, you can imagine that our reality is a big block of marble and we see it being chiselled away bit by bit, acknowledging differences, we get to know the ontological categories. These differences are the defining factors of the world.
Differance is that process of chiselling, over time.
What we note as differance will thus be the movement of play that “produces” (and not by something that is simply an activity) these differences, these effects of difference. This does not mean that the differance which produces differences is before them in a simple and in itself unmodified and indifferent present. Differance is the nonfull, nonsimple "origin"; it is the structured and differing origin of differences.
Differance is also the driving force for Dasein— a temporal phenomenon. It doesn't exist at a point in time, but over a stretch of time, ever changing, ever interacting. It is the tapestry of ever-accumulating traces created by differance, which often has the illusion of being only at present.
I shall only note that between differance as temporalizing-temporalization (which we can no longer conceive within the horizon of the present) and what Heidegger says about temporalization in Sein und Zeit (namely, that as the transcendental horizon of the question of being it must be freed from the traditional and metaphysical domination by the present or the now)—between these two there is a close, if not exhaustive and irreducibly necessary, interconnection.
Coming back to the signs, the signs we use in our languages are placeholders for things that are not present. This act of signification itself depends on differance because with this sign, we are deferring the entity we are signifying. Maybe we haven't stumbled upon languages and found a nice tool to use. Languages, perhaps, have a deeper ontological root, which makes it necessary for sentient beings, which brings us to the closing thought of this essay:
Being
speaks
through every language;
everywhere and always.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
TL;DR: Derrida introduced Differance (notice the a instead of e) as a concept of creating differences over time. It is temporal.
While TL;DRs are good in the short term and nice to know, and will get us some nerd points in society, to understand the importance of this concept, one has to not only read this 24-page essay, but also a substantial part of the materials mentioned there.
So, on one hand, we have our plain, old difference. We use it all the time. This means two entities are not the same. But, this newly introduced differance is the process that works in our world over time and creates the differences, often of the same thing.
It is important to understand that differance doesn't exist, we can only see differences made by it. We cannot even bring it into existence because that will actually dissolve it.
Now, how am I to speak of the a of differance? It is clear that it cannot be exposed. We can expose only what, at a certain moment, can become present, manifest; what can be shown, presented as a present, a being-present in its truth, the truth of a present or the presence of a present. However, if differance is (I also cross out the “is”) what makes the presentation of being-present possible, it never presents itself as such. It is never given in the present or to anyone. Holding back and not exposing itself, it goes beyond the order of truth on this specific point and in this determined way, yet is not itself concealed, as if it were something, a mysterious being, in the occult zone of the nonknowing. Any exposition would expose it to disappearing as a disappearance. It would risk appearing, thus disappearing.
This also means that it is not how God has been defined in the negative theology.
Now, let's think about why this concept is important or interesting. First, let's consider this passage:
It was Saussure who first of all set forth the arbitrariness of signs and the differential character of signs as principles of general semiology and particularly of linguistics. And, as we know, these two themes—the arbitrary and the differential—are in his view inseparable. Arbitrariness can occur only because the system of signs is constituted by the differences between the terms, and not by their fullness. The elements of signification function not by virtue of the compact force of their cores but by the network of oppositions that distinguish them and relate them to one another. “Arbitrary and differential” says Saussure “are two correlative qualities.”
It means our knowledge about this world, all the categorisations we have in our head, so that we can distinguish this or that, is not based on our comprehensive knowledge of things. Instead, we know too little, but we know the differences between things. So, you can imagine that our reality is a big block of marble and we see it being chiselled away bit by bit, acknowledging differences, we get to know the ontological categories. These differences are the defining factors of the world.
Differance is that process of chiselling, over time.
What we note as differance will thus be the movement of play that “produces” (and not by something that is simply an activity) these differences, these effects of difference. This does not mean that the differance which produces differences is before them in a simple and in itself unmodified and indifferent present. Differance is the nonfull, nonsimple "origin"; it is the structured and differing origin of differences.
Differance is also the driving force for Dasein— a temporal phenomenon. It doesn't exist at a point in time, but over a stretch of time, ever changing, ever interacting. It is the tapestry of ever-accumulating traces created by differance, which often has the illusion of being only at present.
I shall only note that between differance as temporalizing-temporalization (which we can no longer conceive within the horizon of the present) and what Heidegger says about temporalization in Sein und Zeit (namely, that as the transcendental horizon of the question of being it must be freed from the traditional and metaphysical domination by the present or the now)—between these two there is a close, if not exhaustive and irreducibly necessary, interconnection.
Coming back to the signs, the signs we use in our languages are placeholders for things that are not present. This act of signification itself depends on differance because with this sign, we are deferring the entity we are signifying. Maybe we haven't stumbled upon languages and found a nice tool to use. Languages, perhaps, have a deeper ontological root, which makes it necessary for sentient beings, which brings us to the closing thought of this essay:
Being
speaks
through every language;
everywhere and always.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
Who are we? The answer to this question is not only one of the tasks, but the task of science.
As stated by Erwin Schrödinger in Science and Humanism. This sets the tone of this book. This is an evolutionary journey of self-searching guided by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.
What I like about this pair of authors, and why I keep coming back to them, is their sense of balance. Between rational and real, poetic and scientific, between not being egoistic and also not being humiliated due to what we are. This balance makes their book accessible without compromising on seriousness. Even if you are a seasoned reader of their work and of pop-science in general, you will still find thought-provoking moments.
I really like how gently and kindly, almost like a doctor, they try to remove deep-seated notions of superiority based on self-deception (a disease in my opinion).
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
Who are we? The answer to this question is not only one of the tasks, but the task of science.
As stated by Erwin Schrödinger in Science and Humanism. This sets the tone of this book. This is an evolutionary journey of self-searching guided by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.
What I like about this pair of authors, and why I keep coming back to them, is their sense of balance. Between rational and real, poetic and scientific, between not being egoistic and also not being humiliated due to what we are. This balance makes their book accessible without compromising on seriousness. Even if you are a seasoned reader of their work and of pop-science in general, you will still find thought-provoking moments.
I really like how gently and kindly, almost like a doctor, they try to remove deep-seated notions of superiority based on self-deception (a disease in my opinion).
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
This book is very concentrated in its form. Myriad ideas got traversed simultaneously— some from historical incidents, some are pure stories, and some are stories about stories— all intertwined to craft a truly musical offering.
So, what is this book about? Art, literature, music, war, destruction, wastage of human life… But, above all, this is a book about hope, about hope and goodness that doesn't wither. It is a book about love that perseveres amidst the toughest of times.
More hunger will come, and more cold and more death. But there are red flowers. This is food for the eyes. Knowing this, every morning will be a child from now on. And every night a womb. With such knowledge, no one can lose a war.
This is also a book of life— how circular it is, yet how many variances it accommodates— like music— through repetition and variation, how it blooms— often awkwardly, through individual lives to something greater than the sum.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
This book is very concentrated in its form. Myriad ideas got traversed simultaneously— some from historical incidents, some are pure stories, and some are stories about stories— all intertwined to craft a truly musical offering.
So, what is this book about? Art, literature, music, war, destruction, wastage of human life… But, above all, this is a book about hope, about hope and goodness that doesn't wither. It is a book about love that perseveres amidst the toughest of times.
More hunger will come, and more cold and more death. But there are red flowers. This is food for the eyes. Knowing this, every morning will be a child from now on. And every night a womb. With such knowledge, no one can lose a war.
This is also a book of life— how circular it is, yet how many variances it accommodates— like music— through repetition and variation, how it blooms— often awkwardly, through individual lives to something greater than the sum.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.