Status Updates From Piknik pored puta

gross. really really gross. I won't lie (and perhaps it was less reading comprehension and more me not being able to pay attention) but I didn't realize Monkey wasn't actually a monkey (I went back and forth on it in the beginning)- but she is, and she can't understand anymore. The whole situation is gross- wanting to marry her, that is- from seeing her from when she was a literal child to a nonconsenting adult.

I can clearly see how modern sci-fibwere inspired by this one. To name a few: Aniquilation, Arrival and The expansion Project.

andddd there it is: the title. In talks of knowledge and intelligence- what makes someone/thing intelligent- it's and argument going in circles (a conversation I probably would have loved reading if the book so far hadn't been miserable). We were but a roadside picnic. I don't understand the upset of Noonan. What makes man so great? his destruction?

In other notes, the bagel I ate doesn't taste very good.

I'm literally falling asleep reading this. This is such a struggle.

'Scared... And maybe that's how it should be. They should be even more scared than the rest of us ordinary folks put together. Because we merely don't understand a thing, but they at least understand how much they don't understand... Meanwhile, we sinners look the other way, so to speak... He was right about that: mankind's most impressive achievement is that it has survived and intends to continue doing so.'

'"You ask: what makes man great?" he quoted. "Is it that he re-created nature? That he harnessed forces of almost-cosmic proportions? That in a brief time he has conquered the planet and opened a window onto the universe? No! It is that despite all this, he has survived, and intends to continue doing so."'

'Intelligence is the ability to harness the powers of the surrounding world without destroying the said world.' i think alongside this, intelligence is also knowing where the destruction lies and the odds that are stacked between empowering the self and empowering the world around the self in the process.

'My God, he thought, we can't do a thing! We can't stop it, we can't slow it down! No force in the world could contain this blight, he thought in horror. It's not because we do bad work. And it's not because they are more clever and cunning than we are. The world is just like that. Man is like that. If it wasn't for the Visit, it would have been something else. Pigs can always find mud.' well well well... relevancy!

'It stank of vulgarity, of the foul scum that had grown on the Zone, gotten rich by the Zone, fed, drank, and fattened from the Zone, and didn't give a damn- and especially didn't give a damn about what would happen when it gorged itself to its heart's content, and all that used to be in the Zone settled in the outside world.' - the privileged/rich rivalling the decrepit/poor, oh how society doesn't dare shift.

this page is particularly intriguing. too long to copy into this update, but truly magnificent - i wish i could share it in full. Red experiencing the zone OUTSIDE of its bounds; a devastatingly colossal collision of sense, all converging into one unmistakably foreign experience that Red feels has pummeled him into a whole separate world from his reality - this is what living and breathing the zone will do to you.

'It was 6am, and the streets were empty, the pavement was wet and black, and the traffic lights at the intersections kept a lonely and pointless vigil.'

physically leaving the zone with an severely injured Burbridge in the backseat, and yet the zone remains, haunting. it appears to mock their mortality by infecting what they perceive with this constant lens of death and suffering, a funeral for the living.

'"Right now, you aren't a person, got it? Right now, you are a machine, my steering wheel, my lever..."'

the fact that the zone causes the stalkers to become so psychologically unhinged that they will say all matter of things in some feeble attempt to remain sane, even sacrificing the remains of their sanity as it drains the farther they venture into the zone - absolutely phenomenal.

'Here's the zone! And instantly a chill runs down my spine. I feel it every time, but I still don't know whether it's the zone greeting me or a stalker's nerves acting up. Every time I figure I'll go back and ask others if they feel it too, and every time I forget.'

barely begun and and i'm utterly obsessed. the zone itself is the most fascinating antagonistic entity, feeding off of those who dare venture inside.

"... Ne zbog toga što loše radimo. I ne zbog toga što su oni lukaviji i veštiji od nas. Jednostavno je svet takav. I čovek je u celom tom našem svetu takav. Da nije bilo Posete- desilo bi se nešto drugo. Svinja će već sama sebi blato pronaći..."