Solz on our stuff

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Solzhenitsyn's observation, as described in the first two volumes of the Gulag Archipelago, about the long memories of our things is two sided. Some of us are pack rats in order to help us remember events. But some of those events we would be better off not remembering.
The chief of the convoy - a ruddy mug, a good Russian face - broke into a run, and I hadn't managed to grasp what he wanted and why until I saw that he meant, clearly, to plant his sacred boot in my cursed back but something restrained him. However, he didn't spare his polished toe and kicked the suitcase and smashed in the top...
(I still have that suitcase, and even now when I chance to come upon it, I run my fingers around the hole torn in it. It is a wound which cannot heal as wounds heal on bodies or on hearts. Things have longer memories than people.) (p. 524)

Comments

Joe said…
I was going to comment earlier, but I couldn't remember to do so.

Great Solz quote, though.
September 19, 2008
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