".....it occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.
Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds’ eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas—abstract, invisible, gone once they’ve been spoken—and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created."
6 comments:
true story
I am going to look for his books :-) And I haven't forgotten about your stuff ;-)
Hmmm, i read your blog yesterday, then guess what last night i dreamt about a butterfly causing a hurricane - we were in gayaza in the dormitory and our headmistress from back then when i was there came screening that a hurricane was headed towards us and that it had been caused by a butterfly, there was lots of noise and i thought i was going to die, it was such a relief to wake up, then i laughed at myself. I think i will look for the book, sounds interesting. Fiona
i want to read this book if you have it rhino? plse... and i love your review? sentiments? musings? contemplations on fragile things...hearts...stories
hey rhino, nice stuff,wanna have the book.
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