We are creatures of great change. Not a single atom in our bodies today was there when we were children. Every bit of us has been replaced many times over. We flake away and become new. Whatever we are now, we are not the stuff from which we were originally made. All the people we once were. All the people we had once hoped to be.
— Colum McCann, Twist: A Novel (Random House, March 25, 2025)
Notes:
- Man can write. I’d read anything he puts on paper….
- NY Times Book Review: “A Novel Explores the Undersea Cables That Connect the World. The crew in Colum McCann’s new book makes complex repairs deep in the ocean. Human bonds prove harder to mend.”
- Guardian Book Review: “Colum McCann: I like having my back against the Wall”
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was waiting for you to weigh in before I started reading this.
I love this. Change is a topic I often find myself discussing with others. The topic of change is always about dealing with it when it arrives at our doors. A few individuals are the change. They initiate it. They hit the ground with their heel, the seed that starts the change. I find that change hits most individuals like a tsunami. Even though slow changes are taking place constantly.
Thank you for sharing.
So deep! Thanks for sharing.
and your thoughts remind me of:
It is of the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: A Novel (Harper, November 19 2024)
I agree with Sawsan – some leap into change, delighted to be a catalyst…I’m not sure if change is the problem for some. I think it’s the requisite transition, that self sabotages at every turn. I’m all for change (or the changes that don’t hinder my freedom), but getting across the finish line is the tougher call.
Yes, so agree Mimi!
An interesting post. Just last week we intensively discussed the ‘vulnerability’ of cables on the ocean’s bottom. HH knows a lot about this subject and we were startled at the ease of ‘hurting’ these so important connections. The NYT review was super intense to read. Although this isn’t my usual ‘fare’, this review alone would be of interest to me (if I’d still be able to read easily). Wasn’t very impressed with the Guardian’s take (unusual as I am quite the fan normally). But then it’s maybe a tad too scary to ‘dive’ into it? I’m suffering from an overload of rather terrifying news from across the pond, as it is.
Thanks a lot for sharing.
I too didn’t think much about cables on the ocean’s bottom but this book changed that. I thought you would find this passage interesting:
“She had happened upon a news report of a cable break in Vietnam and had been surprised to learn that nearly all the world’s intercontinental information was carried in fragile tubes on the seafloor. Most of us thought that the cloud was in the air, she said, but satellites accounted for only a trickle of internet traffic. The muddy wires at the bottom of the sea were faster, cheaper, and infinitely more effective than anything up there in the sky. On occasion the tubes broke, and there was a small fleet of ships in various ports around the world charged with repair, often spending months at sea. Was I interested, she asked, in exploring the story? It was fascinating to think that an email or a photograph or a film could travel at near the speed of light in the watery darkness, and that the tubes sometimes had to be fixed, but my sense of the technology was limited, and it was all still a perplexing series of ones and zeros for me. I demurred.”
— Colum McCann, Twist: A Novel (Random House, March 25, 2025)
This may be too deep for me (pun intended), but husband asked recently if I have any good books he can read, and I’ll bet he’d like this one!
I hope so!