(no subject)
"Now everyone is busy scraping the bottom of his bowl with his spoon so as not to waste the last drops of soup; a confused, metallic clatter, signifying the end of the day. Silence slowly prevails and then, from my bunk on the top row, I see and hear old Kuhn praying aloud, with his beret on his head, swaying backwards and forwards violently. Kuhn is thanking God becuase he has not been chosen.
Kuhn is out of his senses. Does he not see Beppo the Greek in the bunk next to him, Beppo who is twenty years old and is going to the gas chamber the day after tomorrow and knows it and lies there looking fixedly at the light without saying anything and without even thinking any more? Can Kuhn fail to realize that next time it will be his turn? Does Kuhn not understand that what has happened today is an abomination, which no propitiatory prayer, no pardon, no expiation by the guilty, which nothing at all in the power of man can ever clean again?
If I was God, I would spit at Kuhn's prayer."
An essential book. Not essential in the way Camus is essential. Or Dostoevsky. Or Chandler. But essential in that people need to know and understand the extent to which man has suffered. I say this not in a miserable, nihilistic way but with positive, affirming intentions. Through works like this, through empathy, through never forgetting, not turning our heads away in shame coupled with denial, but through confronting every aspect head-on, only then can we make sure that history never repeats itself.
Kuhn is out of his senses. Does he not see Beppo the Greek in the bunk next to him, Beppo who is twenty years old and is going to the gas chamber the day after tomorrow and knows it and lies there looking fixedly at the light without saying anything and without even thinking any more? Can Kuhn fail to realize that next time it will be his turn? Does Kuhn not understand that what has happened today is an abomination, which no propitiatory prayer, no pardon, no expiation by the guilty, which nothing at all in the power of man can ever clean again?
If I was God, I would spit at Kuhn's prayer."
An essential book. Not essential in the way Camus is essential. Or Dostoevsky. Or Chandler. But essential in that people need to know and understand the extent to which man has suffered. I say this not in a miserable, nihilistic way but with positive, affirming intentions. Through works like this, through empathy, through never forgetting, not turning our heads away in shame coupled with denial, but through confronting every aspect head-on, only then can we make sure that history never repeats itself.