Haiti y mas
Jan. 22nd, 2010 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
metonomia I just made a donation to the Hope for Haiti Now program, which is lovely, and their benefit telethon was great, from what I saw (Justin Timberlake's "Hallelujah" was breathtaking). It wasn't a huge donation, but that's not the point - the point is the we all do what we can. Things like this - any sort of war or disaster - make me feel so darn conflicted, though. On the one hand, it is of course heartbreaking and horrible that such terrible things happen to anyone. On the other hand, it does inspire a certain amount of hope for the future of humanity to see how people rally around those who need help, the unlikely and likely heroes alike, the stories of people getting saved, the determination and neighborliness and resilience of people. On a third hand (the Doctor's regenerating one, methinks), it kind of makes me mad that there are places so impoverished and left without basic help and yet require a huge disaster for other people to help them. That seems wrong. Yes, natural disasters can hurt anyone, any country, no matter their economic status - but it definitely hurts more in places where they don't have the money and resources available to build sturdier infrastructure, or to rebuild, and it is just so disappointing to me that places like Haiti can be so ruined by not only the indifference of nature but by the heartlessness of other nations.
In way happier news, I pulled out an erstwhile favorite tonight, Heart of Darkness, and I just have to gush about how much I adore this book.
A short passage for your own delight:
And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman.
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
There's so much more I love in this book, but I'll leave it with that gorgeous image.
Guys. Joseph Conrad wrote this in English, which is not even his native language. The man was a genius of the first degree, a god amongst men, a beacon of light in the world of literature, the lighthouse drawing us out of the darkness of poor literature with images of unimaginable darkness. I cannot express how much I adore this novel. I'll just go re-read selections of it and glory in its utter brilliance.
In way happier news, I pulled out an erstwhile favorite tonight, Heart of Darkness, and I just have to gush about how much I adore this book.
A short passage for your own delight:
And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman.
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
There's so much more I love in this book, but I'll leave it with that gorgeous image.
Guys. Joseph Conrad wrote this in English, which is not even his native language. The man was a genius of the first degree, a god amongst men, a beacon of light in the world of literature, the lighthouse drawing us out of the darkness of poor literature with images of unimaginable darkness. I cannot express how much I adore this novel. I'll just go re-read selections of it and glory in its utter brilliance.
