on reading

Thoughts on Reading Němci,  by Jakuba Katalpa

There are so many sad stories to tell.
Why?
Do we feel better afterwards?
Do we live better afterwards?

Every mother and every son,
Every lover and every daughter,
has a sad story to tell.

What else can we do?
To relive what we have lost,
And save what we did not understand,
while we were living it.

Every father,
and every son,
has a sad story to tell.

14 May 2013

Note:  I purchased this book after reading a review.  The reviewer remarked that because the book was long and had so many different characters, probably no one would read it-- these days we don't have that sort of time.
I am sure the reviewer meant no harm by the remark; but he might as well have said that today we've not got time to admit our ignorance of the most important things, or that we've not got time to understand more than we do.  A sad sort of testament.