Like any good war story, this one was absurd and, at times, rather difficult to follow. But, like any good war story, it proved its point by taking the ugliest man has to offer and pushing it to the breaking point so that all is laid bare - literally.
It wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't television.
When I walk into a room, I'm lower than anyone else, and that everyone takes me for a buffoon, so "Why not, indeed, play the buffoon, I'm not afraid of your opinions, because you're all, to a man, lower than me! pg 43
A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn't it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and make a mountain out of a pea - he knows all of that and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility . . . pg 44
That's just it, that 'but . . ., Ivan was shouting. I tell you, novice, that absurdities are all too necessary on earth. The world stands on absurdities, and without them perhaps nothing at all would happen. We know what we know! pg 243
For the mystery of man's being is not only in living, but in what one lives for. Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him. pg 254
I knew on "fighter for an idea" who told himself that when he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so tormented by this deprivation that he almost went and betrayed his "idea" just so that they would give him some tobacco. And such a man: "I am going to fight for mankind." Well, how far will such a man get, and what is he good for? Perhaps some quick action, but he will not endure for long. And no wonder that instead of freedom they have fallen into slavery, and instead of serving brotherly love and human unity, they have fallen, on the contrary, into disunity and isolation, as my mysterious visitor and teacher used to tell me in my youth. - pg 314
As a kid, I loved this movie (the 1990's version with Anthony Quinn, Gary Cole) and remember fondly watching it with my grandmother. At the request of one my students, Johnny Sims, I read it today.
Beautiful. Powerful.
Here are some of my favorite quotes and pictures found on a simple google search.
He remembered the time he had hooked on of a pair of marlin. The male fish always let the female fish feed first and the hooked fish, the female, make a wild, panic-stricken, despairing fight that soon exhausted her, and all the time the male had stayed with her, crossing the line and circling with her on the surface. He had stayed so close that the old man was afraid he would cut the line with his tail which was sharp as a scythe and almost of that size and shape. When the old man had gaffed her and clubbed her, holding the rapier bill with its sandpaper edge and clubbing her across the top of her head until her colour turned to a colour almost like the backing of mirrors, and then, with the boy’s aid, joisted her aboard, the male fish had stayed by the side of the boat. While the old man clearing the lines and preparing the harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air beside the boat to see where the female was and then went down deep, his lavender wings, that were his pectoral fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes showing. He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed. Pg 49-50
“Fish,” he said, “I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.”
“I will kill him though,” he said. “In all his greatness and his glory.” Although it is unjust, he though. But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures. Pg 66
It is good we do not have to try and kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers. Pg 75
“Keep my head clear,” he said against the wood of the bow. “I am a tired old man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother and now I must do the slave work.” Pg 95
“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” Pg 103
You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more? Pg 105
He spat into the ocean and said, Eat that, galanos. And make a dream you’ve killed a man.” Pg 119
“In the night I spat something strange and felt something in my chest was broken.” Pg 125
Also, here is Hemingway's Cocktail for Rough Times
A study, a glimpse, into the heart of man. The white man has many large footprints around the world where God, the pursuit of exploration, and the hope to "civilize" granted permission to pillage, destroy, and rape a people and land. The natives might have called them Martians. But they didn't. But reading a story that places the white man on the other side of colonization certainly has a different feel to it than our high school history books.
The War of the Worlds was a decent and easy read which also made it tolerable. If it had gone on too much longer it may have been shelved before completed, but as it is, just shy of 200 pages, it was worth the read.
And it offered a few choice nuggets. In Chapter 13, one of the minor characters (the curate) finds himself in complete mental anguish and begins a brief discussion of the purpose of life, conflict, and role of man.
"What does it mean?" he said. "What do these things mean?
I stared at him and made no answer.
He extended a thin white hand and spoke in almost a complaining tone.
"Why are these things permitted? What sins have we done? The morning service was over, I was walking through the roads to clear my brain for the afternoon, and then - fire, earthquake, death! As if it were Sodom and Gomorrah! All our work undone, all the work - What are these Martians?"
"What are we?" I answered, clearing my throat. He gripped his knees and turn to look at me again. For half a minute, perhaps, he stared silently. "I was walking through the roads to clear my brain," he said. "And suddenly - fire, earthquake, death!"
He relapsed into silence, with his chin now sunken almost to his knees.
Presently he began waving his hand. "All the work - all the Sunday school -- What have we done - what has Weybridge done? Everything gone - everything destroyed. The church! We rebuilt it only three years ago. Gone! Swept out of existence! Why?"
. . .
"Be a man!" said I. "You are scared out of your wits! What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent."
H.G. Wells then provides a possible answer to the question of what is the purpose of conflict? What is It all about?
Answer: to endure, and to not lose hope.
By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.
And then he concludes with:
And there, amazed and afraid, even as I stood amazed and afraid, were my cousin and my wife - my wife white and tearless. She gave a faint cry. "I came," she said. "I knew - knew --"
She put her hand to her throat - swayed. I made a step forward, and caught her in my arms."
Beautiful.