Fragments

Collection #31

These fragments are circular in their intent, turning and returning, picking up and putting down. All of the below I have presented in the past year, now offered again, in a different order, at a different time.

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Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel:

In Broch’s mind, the Modern Era is the bridge between the reign of irrational faith and the reign of the irrational in a world without faith. The figure who appears at the end of that bridge is Huguenau. The cheerful, guilt-free murderer. The end of the Modern Era in its euphoric version.

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Robert Musil, ‘Questions for Volume Two’ of The Man Without Qualities:

The outstanding personalities of history are criminals: Ulrich’s plans to become a Napoleon. But for the most part, criminal here means: anti-philistine, someone unconstrained. But they really were criminals: murderers, oath breakers, liars, tricksters…

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Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion:

If I burn down the Golden Temple, I told myself, I shall be doing something that will have great educational value. For it will teach people that it is meaningless to infer indestructibility by analogy. They will learn that the mere fact of the Golden Temple’s having continued to exist, of its having continued to stand for five hundred and fifty years by the Kyoko Pond, confers no guaranty upon it whatsoever. They will be imbued with a sense of un-easiness as they realize that the self-evident axiom which our survival has predicated on the temple can collapse from one day to another.