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A Peculiar Silence |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / REVIEWS |
| Author: Richard Lourie |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 9/1/2003 |
| Size: 2,077 Words, 12,409 Characters |
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ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION
W.G. Sebald; trans. Anthea Bell
New York: Random House, 2003
208 pp., $23.95
Wars never end. Of course, they come to a close: truces are signed, reparations are made, borders shift, flags change, and so forth. But their consequences live on for a surprisingly long time; some wounds take centuries to heal. The bigger the war, the longer it takes to heal. Since we cannot therefore determine how great the damage is, we also cannot correctly judge the gains and benefits of any military action or historical violence. This is what Chou En-lai meant when he was asked if he thought the French Revolution a success and responded that it was too soon to tell.
Sometimes the echoes of past conflicts are dim and mostly symbolic, as with recent controversies...
. . .
... of amnesia or denial in the German response to historical events.
It is certainly true that the best way to exorcise the demons of history is to expose them to the light of reason, but it may also be true that some events are so monstrous that reason cannot contain or comprehend them. Sometimes the wisest choice is oblivion, letting the grasses grow over the graves of the past in silence.
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