"As much as we might like to, we can’t assume that all will be fine in the end." Joanne Freeman

Janacek composed his little symphony in 1926.  He originally wrote the opening as a fanfare for a gymnastics festival.  Aomame imagined 1926 Czechoslovakia: The First World War had ended, and the country was freed from the long rule of the Hapsburg Dynasty.  As they enjoyed the peaceful respite visiting central Europe, people drank Pilsner beer in cafés and manufactured handsome light machine guns.  Two years earlier, in utter obscurity, Franz Kafka had left the world behind. Soon Hitler would come out of nowhere and gobble up this beautiful country in the blink of an eye, but at the time no one knew what hardships lay in store for them.  This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: "At the time, no one knew what was coming." 

1Q84

Haruki Murakami

 ...the Netanyahu era no longer seemed to them like the hijacking of an imperfect democracy but instead like the completion of a fundamentally illiberal national project.

Gideon Lewis-Kraus

The New Yorker

September 16, 2024