I was so afraid as I neared the end of Little Boy Lost that when I finally came to the conclusion, I wept."We have thought for years in terms of movements and groups," she said, "never of individuals. We have accepted the judgment of groups and we have subordinated our morality to them." And she said, "I know now that that was wrong. The only good thing we can do, the only goodness we can be sure of, is our own goodness as individuals and the good that we can do individually. As groups we often do evil that good may come and very often the good does not come and all that is left is the evil we have pointlessly done."
"No monsieur, I am sure that either this is your son, or that your son is beyond human reach. 'And since I am assured that he would be brought up in the faith, I should be very content if you wished to recognise this child as yours."In this incredibly moving novel, Laski explores not only the relationship between father and son, but also that between tenderness and selfishness. She shows us the power we have as individuals for doing good, and in so doing, to redeem not only others but ourselves. I loved it with all my heart.
"Why?" asked Hilary sharply, "Why are you so anxious that I should take him?"
She looked at him steadily for a moment and then said, "There are many reasons. One is that I am deeply sorry for you. You seem to me lost and in need of comfort. I would not wish to withhold that comfort from you."
Contrast this passage from Chapter 13 with this which concludes Chapter 15:'One moment longer,' whispered solitude and the summer moon, 'stay with us: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your presence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you; enjoy these precious minutes.'
If the storm had lulled a little at sunset, it made up now for lost time. Strong and horizontal thundered the current of the wind from northwest to south-east; it brought rain like spray, and sometimes, a sharp hail like shot; it was cold and pierced me to the vitals. I bent my head to meet it, but it beat me back. My heart did not fail at all in this conflict; I only wished that I had wings and could ascend the gale, spread and repose my pinions on its strength, career in its course, sweep where it swept. While wishing this, I suddenly felt colder where before I was cold, and more powerless where before I was weak. I tried to reach the porch of a great building near, but the mass of frontage and the giant-spire turned black and vanished from my eyes. Instead of sinking on the steps as I intended, I seemed to pitch headlong down an abyss. I remember no more.Who can compare the travails of the heart with the storms found in weather like Charlotte Bronte? (And, don't you love the artwork I found for the summer moon? Click on the painting to take you to the site.)
By telling the tale of Kate Begley and me, with its wide canvas, its wild swings of emotion, its heroes and villains, and its extraordinary conclusion, I'm opening old wounds to examine why I took the actions that I did, some of them terrible. Once more I'm hurting myself, and even though I long since traveled past all that, even though the life I've lived rewarded me acceptably, I'm still, as I write these words, having to calculate the control that I'll need merely to tell you.We discover that Ben is narrating his story to his children, and therefore to us, and it is a tale with dangers and decisions which remind me of William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice. Of course, those who lived through World War II must have nightmares untold, not only of the bombings they heard but of the sufferings they endured.
So I took on every writer whom they recommended, from Chaucer to Dickens and Hardy; from Franklin to Hawthorne and Thoreau, from Balzac to de Maupassant and Zola.Which, in fact, is an apt description for Ben himself.
And then I went on to read ever more widely, finding all the while many new friends on the page. I read Plato and tried to understand what understanding is; I read Socrates and learned how to argue with myself; I read Ovid and wished that I had been the one to collect those legends.
More important, I grew a kind of new skin--meaning, I gave myself a private identity. A librarian in a town where I'd been staying for two weeks introduced me to the work of a woman from Belfast, Helen Waddell, who had translated Chinese poems, some of which were written twelve centuries before the birth of Christ...the book became my constant companion, The Wandering Scholars.
Sometimes--if not always--we have to depend on others to tell us the truth of ourselves. Bobby Bilburn, with his wobbling stomach and a jowl big as a briefcase, and his elegant, orotund speech, captured for me the essence of why I'd liked the road around Ireland. It had nothing to do with the outer world; it had to do with the landscapes within me, and my own mountains and rivers and lakes. No wonder I've so loved my Wandering Scholars. They understood the inner terrain that we all have--and the need to travel it.It is a profoundly meaningful journey that Delaney helps us to travel. One I'm in awe of him creating.
How silly am I?! I had thought that Villette was a person, the woman on the front cover perhaps? Now I know that Villette is a fictional place near France, to which Lucy Snowe has decided to venture after London. A brave woman, with 'no social significance and little burdened by cash', the story becomes curiouser and curiouser.
'Go to Villette,' said an inward Voice; prompted doubtless by the recollection of this slight sentence uttered carelessly and at random by Miss Fanshawe, as she bid me good-bye:
'I wish you would come to Madame Beck's; she has some marmots whom you might look after: she wants an English gouvernante, or was wanting one two months ago.'....
Before you pronounce on the rashness of the proceeding, reader, look-back to the point whence I started; consider the desert I had left, note how little I perilled: mine was the game where the player cannot lose and may win.
All at once my position rose on me like a ghost. Anomalous; desolate, almost blank of hope, it stood. What was I doing here alone in great London? What should I do on the morrow? What prospects had I in life? What friends had I on earth? Whence did I come? Whither should I go? What should I do?Shortly after this passage Chapter 5 comes to a close, leaving me with a deep admiration for Miss Lucy Snowe's courage coupled with a deeper curiosity as to where her adventure will lead.
I wet the pillow, my arms, and my hair, with rushing tears. A dark interval of most bitter thought followed this burst; but I did not regret the step taken, nor wish to retract it. A strong, vague persuasion, that it would be better to go forward than backward, and that I could go forward-that a way, however narrow and difficult, would in time open, predominated over other feelings...
'The motive,' Harry said. 'Basic stuff, isn't it? The motive, that's where we start our investigation. It's so fundamental that sometimes we forget it. Until one day, out of the blue, up he pops: the killer out of every detective's worst nightmare. Or wet dream, all depending on how your head's wired. And the nightmare is the killer who has no motive. Or to be more precise: who has no motive that is humanly possible to comprehend.'Can you see the book tucked underneath the devil's star? It's Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire, and in my opinion that's where she belongs: underneath Jo Nesbø's third book. In all the hullabaloo about Scandinavian crime writers, one must face the fact that for many, Nesbø does it best.
'Now you're just painting a devil on the wall, Inspector Hole, aren't you.' Skarre looked round at the others. 'We don't know yet whether there is a motive behind these killings or not.'
When people say that what I've done is insane, that my heart must be crippled inside, then I say: Whose heart is more crippled, the heart that cannot stop loving or the one that is loved but cannot return that love?
