Looking at the town of Anchor from a balcony of Wolfe Hall, Dan Coffin reflects:
"...I only have to walk a few kilometers out...and I'll be alone with the unhuman and its eternity.
"I'm also close to them in time, of course, his mind added. Soon I'll be among them. It was a strange feeling." (p. 149)
And also a strange way of expressing it. He means that he will soon be dead. The matter that composes his body will soon return into, or re-merge with, its eternal unhuman environment. Eternal unhumanity sounds apocalyptic but Coffin's consciousness will have ended, of course. At least, he seems to expect it to end and I agree with him. Coffin has not retained his foster-father's Christianity.
However, at the very end of the story, Coffin addresses the portrait of his dead wife, Eva:
"'I wish you could have seen.' He shook his head, ran fingers through his hair. 'Maybe you did? I don't know." (p. 157)
The totality of experience is what we see, think, feel - and don't know.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
But that "Maybe you did?" by Dan Coffin means I have to conclude he was not a "hard" agnostic or outright atheist.
Ad astra! Sean
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