#thelovelyposts

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A Mughal Empress or Member of the Royal Family | The Wellcome Collection

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Every time I have wrestled either an angel or a devil, I have been usefully but catastrophically defeated. But I have always had the distinct impression of being tuned, of something being burnt off, of giving libation to the god of limits.

Martin Shaw, Courting the Wild Twin

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So what made Mr. Pears undertake such a novel? He said he was haunted by the figure of Jérome Carcopino, the French classicist who was the author of ''Daily Life in Ancient Rome'' and was also minister of youth and education in the Vichy government. Carcopino promulgated the anti-Semitic laws that deprived Jewish professors of their jobs.

''He was the epitome of the humanist tradition,'' Mr. Pears said. ''How could he do this?''

''This was the most advanced civilization the world had ever seen—how did this happen?'' Mr. Pears said of Germany. ''The standard interpretation is that the Holocaust was the result of barbarism on the part of the Germans,'' he continued. ''But not to me. This is a nation that brought us Goethe and Beethoven.''

''What happened during the Nazi period came out of civilization,'' he said. ''When you say you are going to protect the state from barbarism, it is time to be very afraid, because civilized countries have greater resources and can do greater damage.''

''Anti-Semitism is like alcoholism,'' Mr. Pears said. ''You can go for 25 years without a drink, but if things go bad and you find yourself with a vodka in your hand, you can't get rid of it. It's an emotional inheritance, a social inheritance."

— some excerpts from an interview with british author iain pears, about the depiction of antisemitism in his novel the dream of scipio

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Sognebunad

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West Telemark Bunad

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He had the kind of loneliness that battles everything, that makes a person strange forever.

Sofia Samatar, The Winged Histories

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But still, I longed for relatedness. The back-and-forth of the thing. The affectionate affinities, the deathly hard-won totems.

Martin Shaw, Courting the Wild Twin