5 May 2012:
“There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond this there is great unrest.”
5.6 Thus how might you express an accumulation containing the integers b, a1, a2, s, v?
5.7 Or is that the wrong way to put the question and express the accumulation? Is the application of logic to the human condition in and of itself self-defeating? What becomes of a chain of argument when the links are made of different metals, each with a separate frangibility?
Okay, okay, I know you might be thinking I am some mental case going on about some enigmatic equation and some theory on accumulation ... It's just that this piece is a significant quote (with such a length, can it even be called a quote?) in The Sense of an Ending.
Yes, it's my nth time mentioning The Sense of an Ending, and you're probably bored by all this hype over a book you've never read, and probably won't. Well, go read it; I think it's a fantastic novel that's just nice at 150 pages.
Y'know when doing The Outsiders and The Clay Marble during Sec 1 and 2 for English literature, I never really was interested in them texts. To me they were just like textbooks and I read them once, twice, and that was it. (Okay, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds attracted me more, but that's another story cos that's drama.)
But for The Sense of an Ending, I really went to analyse and research about this story. It's short, shorter than both Outsiders and Clay Marble, but there's so much more material to question. The themes of human condition, the relationship between history and memory and perception, the different viewpoints that we might not have considered ...
Almost every book review site I visited recommended a re-read after the first time. No doubt, this isn't the kind of book you read and put it back into your bookshelf (or return it to the library) and forget about it. Anyway, I supose most people would re-read it because of how the book ends. There's lots of questions to be answered, and you would certainly have to revisit the whole thing again.
I completed my first re-read yesterday on the bus. For a while this felt as challenging as calculus, because you have to use your brain and consider what Barnes (yes, the author) is trying to tell you. The last few pages are very vague, and it's almost like a mystery.
It was a very pleasurable experience reading this book, although I did it mainly while on the bus. However I probably won't read it the third time, cos I want to move on to read other books that I bought, like 1Q84. It's a temporary closure, sort of.
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The exams are almost over. Next week is the final week of exams, with four papers left. AMaths will be difficult, with the assurance of Mrs P. I hope, then, that the triple science papers are not difficult.
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Today is Vesak Day.