On my last visit to the library I happened upon a book by Arturo Perez-Reverte entitled "The Sun Over Breda". A novel set in the 17th century about the Spaniards invading Flanders. After a very graphic description of the carnage of a battle scene, the main character comes away with:
"He who kills from afar knows nothing at all about the
act of killing. He who kills from afar derives no
lesson from life or from death; he neither risks nor
stains his hands with blood, nor hears the breathing
of his adversary, nor reads the fear, courage, or
indifference in his eyes. He who kills from afar
tests neither his arm, his heart, nor his conscience,
nor does he create ghosts that will later haunt him
every single night for the rest of his life. He who
kills from afar is a knave who commends to others the
dirty and terrible task that is his own. He who kills
from afar is worse than other men, because he does not
know anger, loathing, and vengenance, the terrible
passion of flesh and of blood as they meet steel, but
he is equally innocent of pity and remorse. For that
reason, he who kills from afar does not know what he
has lost."
Do you think President Bush would consider that this passage may describe him?
My answer was that Bush would never consider that this passage applies to him. In my opinion, he would be shocked by the suggestion.
Unlike you I suspect that both Bush and Blair would recognise themselves. What is more shocking is they won't care because they are God's warriors.
ReplyDeleteNow that should frighten us.
Pax Christi
D.P.
DP, OCYCBR. Either way, it scares the hell out of me.
ReplyDeleteYour new PM doesn't look much better than Blair, as he seems to be leaning towards supporting Bush in beating the war drums for an attack on Iran.
The bombing plan has had its most positive reception from the newly elected government of Britain’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. A senior European official told me, “The British perception is that the Iranians are not making the progress they want to see in their nuclear-enrichment processing. All the intelligence community agree that Iran is providing critical assistance, training, and technology to a surprising number of terrorist groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, through Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine, too.”
From Seymour Hersh's latest article on US-Iran in The New Yorker
The new Prime Minister is probably less Messianic than Tony Blair but he seems to have a frightening level of self belief and do not forget he has never exprssed a moment's regret re the decision to invade Iraq. Indeed, as Chancellor, he signed the checks for war.
ReplyDeleteHis recent Labour Party Conference speech was the most authoritarian speech by a Labour Party leader that I can remember.
It is quite depressing.
your first commenter -- I had not thought of that. that is truly frightening. god's warriors.
ReplyDeleteTC, it's beyond depressing, tending towards despair. But for my faith....
ReplyDeleteOur Democrats seem not much better, with the exception of a few.
Yes, B&B see themselves as God's warriors. The new B, perhaps not so messianic, but still bellicose.
We're all stuffed then
ReplyDeleteD.P.
Grandmère,
ReplyDeleteThe Mad One has directed us to pop over here and shame you for breaking his internet tube. Who am I to question his bidding?
Shame! And you and old Episcopalian lady!
KJ, I saw that. And he said the usual mean things about me in a cowardly manner, when I couldn't answer back on his blog.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm glad you popped over.
Maybe I'm too cynical but I don't see how firsthand experience with war would have much of an impact on Bush. If anything, it just might brutalize him more.
ReplyDeleteHow about this to take your topic and run pff in an entirely different direction? -- Doris Lessing on D.H. Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover. She reads Lawrence as responding to the horrors of WWI -- a different take on the 60's slogan on making love not war. No doubt it would make GG blush and his buddy spew forth fire and brimstone. But I thought it was kind of interesting -- rescuing old Lawrence from the feminists, not excusing him, by any means, but putting him into context, something like the recent book Reading Lolita in Tehran. Did you ever read that?
Of course I do not pretend to make any sense here, but with Jonathan closing up shop temporarily, where's an off topic tangent to go?
Klady, we're all a little crazed, and the mad ones among us sometimes seem the sanest of all, in this mixed-up, upside-down world.
ReplyDeleteNo rules against OT here, especially when it's upon orders of you know who.
I read Lessing on LC. I confess that I did not read LC until I was in my 30s or 40s, and when I finally did, I thought it was silly - yes, silly. I like Lawrence's other writings, especially Sons and Lovers, but not LC.
The anti-war stuff did not resonate, but I was really looking for the sex anyway, and it disappointed.
I did not read it earlier, because it was on the RC Index of Forbidden Books. I had my moments of rebellion but reading books on the Index were not included.
Lessing's take is interesting. What a life they had, but I guess it was to their liking.
The link to "Reading Lolita in Tehran" did not work for me.
I guess I'm hopeless with html. This is the whole thing to Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Lolita-
ReplyDeleteTehran-Memoir-Books/dp/081297106X
It's a marvellous story of a group of women who secretly met to read and discuss books while the Islamic revolution was dramatically changing their lives and their studies at the university.
Now Lolita, while a far more accomplished and carefully constructed piece of art compared to LCL, always struck me as tediously obscene, and I had to study it in depth in a course taught by a novelist who adored it. Yet reading it in Tehran meant something more, in part, simply because it was Tehran -- not as some kind of symbolic gesture but rather that what one read in the book was different because of the time and place where it was read. I think Lessing was saying the same thing of LCL from the time when it was written until it finally became widely available.
Yes, I can imagine LCL would seem pretty silly later in life. I read it when I was something like 15. I remember it having a huge effect on me, but I can't recall precisely why now, only that the Lessing article brought some of it back. I tried reading parts of it again (it's available online) and it is tough going now. But there was something about the times then, how novel and revolutionary it seemed (at least to a teenager), both from the standpoint of the repressed 1950's and from the marijuana hazed 1960's when it seemed that liberated sex in the muck of Woodstock was mostly for the men's benefit. There just seemed to be something blunt and honest about LOL despite all its melodrama. In contrast, the other major works of the Lawrence canon, despite their own flaws, do hold up much better as literature.
Actually, Katharine Mansfield was the writer I liked best from that period. Unfortunately she died way too early.
(can you tell it is Monday night and I'm struggling with court opinions? ;) )
Sorry, I do appreciate your keeping the war to the forefront of our minds. Day by day it continues with no real end in sight.
Klady, I came to the conclusion that one should have read LCL by the undergraduate years or soon after. I missed the window.
ReplyDeleteI'll try again with the Lolita.
P.S. The book with Lolita in the title is not primarily about reading Lolita -- it's just one small part of the story. They read lots of other books, including Jane Austen, if I remember correctly.
ReplyDeleteMr Bush, I fear, is so far removed from what the rest of us have to go through he thinks by making decisions to go to war he is acting like a president. Or king. Or emperor. Or autocrat.
ReplyDelete¡OK estamos aquí!
ReplyDelete¡Buenos dias! El Sacerdote Loco nos dijo visitar aquí mientras que su línea está abajo.
¿Abuela Mimi, usted tiene bocados de Cajun?
¡Dios mio! Perdoname.
ReplyDeleteSaludos a todos.
Nich, he thinks? I did not know that.
ReplyDelete¡Bienvenidos a todos los amigos del Padre Loco!
¿David, "bocados de Cajun"? ¿Que son brocados?
Are they something naughty?
Mimi, see bocado
ReplyDeleteI have yet to read a Perez-Reverte novel that I didn't love. But do read the Captain Alatriste series from the beginning.
I see that there is a movie based on a bunch of the stories, but I haven't seen it.
¿Que son bocados? Are they something naughty?
ReplyDelete¡¿¡They are "snacks", but they can certainly be naughty if you want them to be!?!
This takes me back to when Admiral Poindexter et al. were on the Security Whatever under Reagan...
ReplyDeleteThey were asked which city could the USA nuke and get best bang for the buck.
They picked Calcutta India for the following reasons:
1. Because of the density of population, one nucular (note Bushesque pronunciation), that is one nucular bomb would kill more people if dropped on Calcutta than on another city.
2. India is so far away from the USA that fall out would be minimalized, despite the direction of the jet stream.
3. If the USA bombed Calcutta, who would care?
Can't find the reference, but I do recall reading this.
Do you think that TEC bishops might consider that it applies to them? They live far from the reality of the people they so easily oppress.
ReplyDeletePaul, I had looked it up and found "mouthful" and "morsel" and the site that you linked, but I did not find "snack".
ReplyDeleteDavid, of course, we have Cajun snacks - Cajun-flavored chips, cracklings. Is that what you mean?
And we have hors d'oeuvres, such as oysters wrapped in bacon and broiled.
With you lot, I never know. The naughtiness might be going right over my head.
If the USA bombed Calcutta, who would care?
ReplyDeleteNich, I hope some of us would. A couple of years ago, I heard talk of small nukes to take out the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. Most of that talk and most of the push to attack Iran comes out of Darth Cheney's office.
Linda, I don't care for the statement from the House of Bishops, but I would definitely not put them in the same category as Bush.
Hi Mimi,
ReplyDeleteIt reminded me of something I wrote a few years back. I finally found it. It's no where near the eloquence of Arturo Perez-Reverte but the sentiments are familiar.
Virtual September
Through your words
I see angels fall from pillars of flame,
but cannot taste your salted tears.
Through your words
I hear the chaos of a thousand souls,
but not one of your choked sobs.
Through your words
I touch the broken shards, pick through the scraps of paper,
scraps of lives. But My hands are empty,
My hands are clean.
Is it the same for the leaders of terror and war,
Too far to see or hear or feel.
Too far removed, too distant, too un-real, too un-real.
Bill – Sept 27th, 2002
Mimi, it must be a heavy burden to keep us entertained while You Know Who is incommunicado. But you're bearing up quite well.
ReplyDeleteklady ...
ReplyDeleteIf you add just a bit before and after a URL, it will become live.
{a href="put URL here inside quote marks"}{/a}
You have to change the { } signs to the 'less than'/'greater than' signs though. Blogger will not display anything if I type them in now.
Bill, may I quote your poem in a post? It's too good to leave in the comments. I promise I won't claim it as mine. I'll give you full credit and a link to your site.
ReplyDeleteLisa, with God's help I bear the burden lightly.
Mike, that's good information. It's difficult to demonstrate without actually making a link.
Klady, you may find this site helpful.
Mimi, No problem. I think it may be on my blog anyway. I lose track of some of the old stuff.
ReplyDeletePaul, I'll have a look into the Captain Alatriste series. What a name.
ReplyDeleteBill, I'll get to posting it later. Thanks for the permission.
I think Bush lives in his own la-la land so completely he probably wouldn't recognize himself. But if he did, he'd just call it collateral damage or something and grin and shrug. Nobody of any importance to him is dying.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read any of the Alatriste series. Your quote from it is wonderful. if much too sadly true (maybe this is where our protagonist gets his name, n'est-ce pas?) Methinks I'm going to have to find these books.