Clare > Recent Status Updates

Re-reading this, and just to note, the audiobook version I'm listening to (the 2004 Minford translation) has a laughably racist introduction. Man. It's just... so transparently limited in its worldview. It's really best to read this work from a more general human vantage point than getting mired in whatever hot take conservative Westerners want to give on Chinese culture, because the lessons themselves are universal.

"We stood no prospect of breaking their spirits."

Sounds like the modern military apparatus could stand to re-read their Lawrence. From Vietnam to Afghanistan to Palestine, historically, bombing campaigns and brute force tactics simply radicalize the general populace and redouble resistance. To quote another author, "there's no strength like a poor man's spine when his back's against the wall."

Want to wage a war without knowing if the terrain is sand or crumbling slate or bare rock escarpment? T.E. Lawrence will not stand for that.

This is getting deep into detail, but, man, it starts strong.

"Blood was always on our hands: we were licensed to it. Wounding and killing seemed ephemeral pains, so very brief and sore was life with us. With the sorrow of living so great, the sorrow of punishment had to be pitiless. We lived for the day and died for it."

"Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation... We must judge a weird tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point."

This certainly explains a lot about Lovecraft's approach to writing! More vibes than plot...