Monday, July 29, 2013

Tobias Wolff: In Pharaoh's Army

I'm reading the book and its absolutely brilliant. I just love his prose - the way he crafts his words... check this out.

"At Dong Tam I saw something that wasn't allowed for in the national myth - our capacity for collective despair. People here seemed in the grip of unshakable petulance. It was in the slump of their shoulders and the plodding way they moved. A sourness had settled over the base, spoiling and coarsening the men. The resolute imperial will was all played out here at empire's fringe, lost in rancor and mud. Here was pharaoh's chariots engulfed, his horsemen confused; and all his magnificence dismayed." 

I wanna write like that!!! Its pure gold reading it. Wow.





He also takes about death, how fate seems to choose one person over another.

And it got me thinking. I've had a number of near death experiences or close calls. One of them happened just a few days ago. I was turning across a lane and was waiting for a BMW car driven by this old middle aged lady with heavy glasses and permed hair to cross my path. However she inexplicably slowed down and it seemed like an age before she passed me by. I got damn impatient and drove hard as she crawled pass me. But my eyes had been so focused upon the beemer that I did not check the incoming traffic on the other side. As I cut across the lane, another car appeared on the other side - a terrible collision could have occurred but he braked in time.



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