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The..steam wasn’t thick enough to fog the chipped mirrors, so his own wide eyes stared back at him from the mirror above the sink. The sight of his own face startled Robert.. He forced himself to straighten up..stop standing like a turtle in a shell..narrow his eyes into a glare. No, too much: someone would take offense. He softened his glare into a thoughtful scowl, alert but unafraid practicing which face to wear

The land agent-“The weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar wide open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch and jerk up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord when the notes are struck. Perhaps it was the Truth feebly endeavoring to leap to his lips. If so, it never reached them.”

The four hearse-horses especially, reared and pranced, and showed their highest action, as if they knew a man was dead, and triumphed in it. “They break us, drive us, ride us; ill treat, abuse and maim us for their pleasure—But they die; Hurrah, they die!”

There were English..Irish..Welsh..and Scotch people there; all with their little store of coarse food and shabby clothes; and nearly all, with their families of children. There were children of all ages; from the baby at the breast to the.. girl..as much grown as her mother. Every kind of domestic suffering that is bred in poverty…and long travel..and yet infinitely less complaint…infinitely..more kindness

What a fascinating, exciting reading experience. I’ve never read anything like this before.

“Nothing in our own surroundings was permitted to define us. Instead, we pledged allegiance to an island thousands of miles away where they had queens and castles and princes, an island we were required to build in our imaginations. Never Never Land” (I wonder as I read this if my mother and her family ever felt this way as her largely Irish family grew up in Canada as does this character.)

I’ve read “Water”, “Earth”, and “Fire” and about to begin the final section “Air”. The primary character of each of these subtly interconnected stories has suffered some soul damaging insult from someone or more others close to them. With his usual wonderful prose, John Boyne etches the fine details of each of their lives.

Industrial mining is…by design a blunt force, low-yield, high-volume business. … This is the primary reason that many industrial copper-cobalt mines in the DRC informally allow artisanal mining to take place on their concessions, and it is also why they tend to supplement industrial production by purchasing high grade artisanal ore from depots.

Why would children be handpicking stones outside a giant, Chinese-owned copper-cobalt concession? The best way to understand..is to examine the difference between industrial and artisanal mining.
Industrial mining is like doing surgery with a shovel artisanal mining is like doing it with a scalpel… Artisanal miners..can ..dig or tunnel for high grade deposits.. Or, like the children..handpick stones of value.

Villages along the road are coated in airborne debris. Children scamper between huts like balls of dust. There are no flowers to be found. No birds in the sky. No placid streams. No pleasant breezes. The ornaments of nature are gone. All color seems pale and unformed. Only the fragments of life remain.
This is Lualaba Province, where cobalt is king.