divendres, 16 de gener del 2009

Wonderful new lies

"Rosewater was twice as smart as Billy, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, had shot a 14 year-old fireman, mistaking him for a german soldier. So it goes. And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes.
So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help.

Rosewater said an interesting thing to Billy one time about a book that wasn't science fiction. He said that everything there was to know about life was in The Brother's Karamazov, by Feodor Dostoevsky. "But that isn't enough any more", said Rosewater.

Another time Billy heard Rosewater say to a phsychiatrist, "I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living".
-.-.-.-


"I myself have seen the bodies of schoolgirls who were boiled alive in a water tower by my own countrymen, who where proud of fighting pure evit at the time". This was true, Billy saw the boiled bodies in Dresden. "And I have lit my way in a prison at night with candles from the fat of human beings who were butchered by the brothers and fathers of thoses schoolgirls who were boiled. Earthlings must be the terror of the Universe! If other planets aren't now in danger from Earth, they soon will be."


Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-5.

(Informació del bombardeig de Dresden: la meva crònica del 60 aniversari a l'Avui, I i II)