Summary: Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is a fantasy book in which the titular character attempts to understand the fundamental nature of the “House” he inhabits. The House is a seemingly-endless chain of statue-filled Halls rising out of an ocean. As Piranesi learns more about the House and encounters other characters within its labyrinthine structure, he becomes increasingly skeptical [...]
Attics are awful places, Teeming with dust, dirt, forgotten faces, When I enter, bent double, the uncertain floor Feels false and I want to run Away. Such things collected, here and there, Brought to the edge of narrow spaces We force our lives through, shafts of light Betray openings in history that close In solitary [...]
As the son of two parents with postgraduate degrees, the purpose and value of education were central to my upbringing. My folks never pushed me, but they always encouraged my intellectual growth and facilitated my desire to attend college with eager ease. I always knew I was lucky (they wouldn’t let me forget it), but [...]
The best thing any story can do is bring people closer together. Sometimes people derive common cause from a story. Sometimes lovers find each other in the dark because the story turns the lights out. Sometimes enemies discover in the story one another’s mortal weakness. Sometimes the reader and author, separate in every way the [...]
Having now read almost all of Iain M. Banks’s Culture novels, I can safely say that they should be required reading for all humans. Was Banks the smartest or most creative science fiction writer of all time? Definitely not. Was his grasp of science and futurism vastly superior to that of his many talented contemporaries? [...]
“Suppose I have a great meal or a great sexual experience. It is over. I have good memories of the experience but I am disappointed that it is over. Why be disappointed? It was a good experience and now it is over. All good things come to an end. Things change, I change. That’s the [...]
“A stranger hurrying as fast as he could over the icy sidewalks looked in. He saw a circle of singing people bathed in the clean white light from a tree, and his heart did a somersault, and the image stayed with him; it merged with him even as he came home to his own children, [...]
“I still hear the sounds of the falls on the Columbia, always will––always––hear the whoop of Charley Bear Belly stabbed himself a big chinook, hear the slap of the fish in the water, laughing naked kids on the bank, the women at the racks…from a long time ago.” ––One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by [...]
“The picture he conjured now came back with special vividness, as if it had been cleansed of all dust by last night’s rain. Unease and expectation and fear scattered to the farthest corners of the spacious classroom, and hid themselves in the room’s many objects like cowardly little animals. Tengo was able to re-create the [...]
“‘They can forget about it,’ Ayumi said. ‘I never can.’ ‘Of course not,’ Aomame said. ‘It’s like some historic massacre.’ ‘Massacre?’ ‘The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They [...]