And yet the morning washes everything away… I think, where would humanity be without morning? Even the most violent need is calmed by dawn, and you can almost catch the fresh scent of hope. The day is a child before it ages and it ages very quickly here, making those early hours all the more miraculous.
— Hisham Matar, My Friends: A Novel (Random House, January 9, 2024)
Notes:
- Just finished this book. Highly Recommended. Here’s an additional passage: “I became, in silent and private ways, powerfully aware of the fragility of all that I treasured: my family, my very sense of myself, the future I allowed myself to expect.” And another: “I had my own words, blades packed in the mouth, capable of cutting my tongue wide open. I feared speaking them and feared not speaking them, and I knew that, like all things of consequence, they could not be postponed or stored away for later use. If I missed my opportunity now, I thought, I would have to carry those words unspoken forever. Sounds in the dark.” And one last one: “A thousand and one things could befall us and the people we love the most would have no hint of it. Which is why we must remain close to them, within an arm’s length.”
- NY Times Book Review by Peter Baker: In ‘My Friends’ an Exile Finds Himself Outside Libya, but Never Far Away
- Photo: DK this morning February 4, 2024 at Cove Island Park @ 6:33 a.m, 28° F feels like pretty damn cold. More photos from this morning here and here.
