The Day Of Their Return.
Here is the kind of passage that I used to just read past but can now google. Desai tells Thane:
"'...I remember the old old saying, 'Let me write a nation's songs, and I care not who might write its laws.'
"'Won't you help me understand your songs?'" (7, p. 125)
The quotation is attributed to a Scottish Parliamentarian, Andrew Fletcher, and even, although apparently mistakenly, to Plato.
What happens after Desai has asked this question is kind of to be expected:
"Silence fell and lasted, save for a wind whittering outside, until the tadmouse offered a timid arpeggio. That seemed to draw Tatiana from her brown study." (ibid.)
Silence: the question is a hard one.
The wind: it whitters, as ever. This time, does it comment that life goes on, regardless?
At last, a native Aenean organism responds - albeit timidly. But this at last draws a response from the Aenean scholar.
Is Desai almost superhumanly good at his almost impossible task?
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Truth to say, I'm not impressed by the Scottish parliament building. It looks both ugly and lacking in architectural coherence and unity. Nothing as dignified as Westminster Palace in London!
I have a vague recollection of Plato, in his REPUBLIC, describing his "ideal" state, DISAPPROVING of many of the poems and songs of his time, including even (I think) Homer's ILIAD and ODYSSEY.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I thought that I was exposing the Scottish Parliament to international ridicule!
Yes, Plato also disliked drama: a shadow of a shadow - or something.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
You were! That parliamentary building is hideous!
The Prince of Wales has an interest in architecture and I have read of how strongly he dislikes much of recent architecture. Such as that ghastly concrete hodgepodge in Scotland.
I've tried to read Plato's REPUBLIC, but I admit it didn't grab me. I have read that Plato's ideal state is disturbingly totalitarian.
Ad astra! Sean
Very.
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