Odd Hours
Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 10:06 am
I have been reading the "Odd Thomas" series of books by Dean Koontz. I would recommend the books. I like the main character. He does have certain "powers" but he is very human, self-effacing and kind.
I usually don't quote passages from the books I read, but I thought this noteworthy. The words just say how I feel sometimes. They spoke to me, and may speak to you as well.
This is a narrative by the hero of the book:
"When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made---which is different from the world that it was given--my primary defence, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world.
The given world dazzles with wonder, poetry, and purpose. The man-made world, on the other hand, is a perverse realm of ego and envy, where power-mad cynics make false idols of themselves and where the meek have no inheritance because they have gladly surrendered it to their idols in return for not lasting glory but for an occasional parade, not for bread but for the promise of bread.
A species that can blind itself to truth, that can plunge so enthusiastically along roads that lead to nowhere but to tragedy, is sometimes amusing in its recklessness, as amusing as the great movie comedians like Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and the many otheres who knew that a foot stuck in a bucket is funnier, and that trying stubbornly to move a grand piano up a set of stairs obviously too steep and narrow to allow success is the hilarious distillation of the human experience.
I laugh with humanity, not at it, because I am as big a fool as anyone, and bigger than most. "
Any thoughts?
Attached files
I usually don't quote passages from the books I read, but I thought this noteworthy. The words just say how I feel sometimes. They spoke to me, and may speak to you as well.
This is a narrative by the hero of the book:
"When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made---which is different from the world that it was given--my primary defence, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world.
The given world dazzles with wonder, poetry, and purpose. The man-made world, on the other hand, is a perverse realm of ego and envy, where power-mad cynics make false idols of themselves and where the meek have no inheritance because they have gladly surrendered it to their idols in return for not lasting glory but for an occasional parade, not for bread but for the promise of bread.
A species that can blind itself to truth, that can plunge so enthusiastically along roads that lead to nowhere but to tragedy, is sometimes amusing in its recklessness, as amusing as the great movie comedians like Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and the many otheres who knew that a foot stuck in a bucket is funnier, and that trying stubbornly to move a grand piano up a set of stairs obviously too steep and narrow to allow success is the hilarious distillation of the human experience.
I laugh with humanity, not at it, because I am as big a fool as anyone, and bigger than most. "
Any thoughts?
Attached files