The Waste Land
Drawn in by this poem that was deliberately written to shame the reader - as a classmate once said. So far I've only got through Chapter I.
Some parallels on my recent trip.
Tobogganing -
"And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went."
Skiing (esp. the last leg), tobogganing, husky sledding -
"In the mountains, there you feel free."
Snow fields and sand dunes -
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust." - or perhaps, snow. / The analysis I read seemed to consider "dust" as an allusion to decay (c.f. Genesis - "And to dust you shall return"), but sand slipping through fingers like time in an hour glass also came to mind.
Husky sledding:-
I was reminded of White Fang and The Call of the Wild. While there are similarities "eat or be eaten" and "kill or be killed"; they appear to be more of reversals of each other. In White Fang, the wolf-dog is domesticated; while in the Call of the Wild, the dog's primeval instincts from the time of its wolf heritage are awaken.
What surprised me in this reading was how savage the fight scenes are. Between the last reading (sometime in uni) and now, life experiences have shown me how brutal and disgusting these episodes are. In our civilised society where there is no shortage of food.