Oct 20, 2005 22:25
i picked up a book from the library today. the first 20 pages are brilliance. its called The Plague by Albert Camus. here's an idea..
"Perhaps the easiest way of making a town's aquaintence is to ascertain how the people in it work, how they love, and how they die. In out little town (is this, one wonders, an effect of the climate?) all three are done on much the same lines, with the same feverish yet casual air. The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but soley with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, "doing business." Naturally they don't eschew such simpler pleasures as love-making, sea-bathing, going to the pictures. But, very sensibly, they reserve these pastimes for Saturday afternoons and Sundays and employ the rest of the week in making money, as much as possible. In the evening, on leaving the office, they forgather, at an hour that never varies, in the cafes, stroll the same boulevard, or take the air on their balconies. The passions of the young are violent and short-lived; the vices of older men seldom range beyond an addiction to bowling, to banquets and "socials," or clubs where large sums change hands on the fall of a card." -3rd paragraph of The Plague by Albert Camus.
i suggest you pick up a copy for yourself.