Friday, September 21, 2007



The search for truth is more precious than its possession.



Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.





The force of character is cumulative.





A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice.


"Here we have two writers whose novels describe the lives of the ‘meek victim.’ Hamsun, in his amazing book “Hunger,” follows the path of his unheroic ‘hero’ – a vagabond who cannot feed himself, and so is driven mad by hunger. This inspired Kafka to write a couple brilliant novels: “The Trial,” in which the protagonist is the victim of a veiled legal system stronger than himself; and, “The Castle,” in which the ‘hero’ is pushed like feeble plankton around in a society that is stronger than himself and malevolent towards his ambiguous interests. What follows Hamsun’s and Kafka’s examples are years of Modernist oeuvres that explore the condition of victimhood."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sam, do you have either of those novels, "The Trial" or "The Castle"? I am intrested in reading them.
Thanks
-Morgan Olivia Campbell