The Violent Century
Lavie Tidhar
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Perhaps it is always summer, in the place where we are young.”
“Think of the future, she whispers. Jumbled images in primary colours. White and red swastika flags waving in the wind; gleaming rockets flying into the air; skyscrapers rise above the Danube, the Thames, the Volga and the Rhine, blond children play under a bright African sun, their uniforms ironed to perfection by their servant-slaves nearby, modern women work at factories assembling Volkswagens, in the mountains in a wood cabin Maria and Erich and their three children go on a skiing holiday, laughing, holding hands…”
“There might be a war on, there might be Nazi tanks on the Champs Elysées and Jews rounded up in the Marais, but this is still Paris, damn it. There are still fresh baguettes baking across the arrondissements, and if the cinemas have to occasionally show a German film to please the troops – H.A. Lettow and Ernst Schäfer’s documentary of the SS expedition to Tibet, Lhasa-Lo – Die verbotene Stadt, for instance – then so be it. Paris is still gay, there is still music in the cafés and wine in the brasseries, and aren’t some of those German soldier-boys handsome?”
“Meeting one’s heroes is always such a disappointment.”
“You know, Herr Schleier? It shimmered a pale blue, the ice did. And the sky, so black, a darkness undisturbed, so very strange, inhuman. Takes a deep shuddering breath, says, And amongst it, stars. So many stars, Franz says. Gulps down hot chocolate, Adam’s apple bobbing up. So many stars. And each and every one is a sum, hiding multiple planets, worlds. War on each one, perhaps. He laughs.”
“What did you see? She says. Reaches around to fondle him again. This time he lets her. She feels him harden. I saw them die, he says. It’s war, she says. War. It comes from the throat. Krieg. It is a throaty word. Krrriegggg. War, he says. War. Stares out of the window. The snow storm outside rises in tempo, it swallows everything, it encloses them inside the room, like prisoners. War, he says. She strokes him until he comes.”
“We cannot stop this war but we can fight it, in the shadows, the Old Man says. You have a choice. We all have a choice. We can give in to the darkness, or we can fight it, and elect to try and make the world a slightly less terrible place than it is. Perhaps we'll fail. If we succeed in what we do, no one would thank us. If we die, no one will remember us.”
“Memory like a chalkboard, but you can never quite remove the images there, only smudge them. Sometimes beyond recognition. —”
“Love cannot be understood as a quantum construct. Or can it?”
“London has always been a warren underground, and Pall Mall is no exception: secret passageways, Tube tunnels, sewers, cellars, more of London under- than above-ground.”
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Book Keywords:
summer, young, paris, war, making-a-difference, future, superhero, love, hero, stars, heroes
