so - last night in herrenberg. as much as i have wanted to return to the USA there are always twinges of melancholy. did i take advantage of the opportunity to experience a new country as much as i could or should have? my mind fights with itself, this is nothing new. i finished my 5th book over an absolutely stupendous rinderfilet at the hotel gasthof restaurant that was apparently only available on the german menu, not the one in english. all this time craving some beef and there was one right under my nose the entire time. anyways, book 5 was "villages" by john updike. his writing style is excellent, but the subject matter not my cup of tea. looking forward to reading the first 2 "rabbit" books on the flight home. couple of great passages at the end.
on the truths of the christian religion (or to me, just western norms):
"one our wish to live forever, however tedious the actual experience of eternal consciousness might be, and, two, our sensation that something is amiss - that there has been a lapse or slippage in the world and things are not quite as they should be. we feel made for a better world, and the fault is ours that this is not eden. the second may be the more solid evidence, since fear and loathing of death can be explained as, like pain, a survival device selected and refined by darwinian evolution. because we fear death, we try harder to live. as long as our genes get through, nature doesn't care how we suffer."
on the onset of alzheimers:
"Owen and Julia are already turned in that direction, talking in baby syllables, touching each other as if for orientation in the dark, squabbling like mated toucans in a tropical jungle and then flying away in perfect forgetful unison."
that last line is a classic description of elderly (and not so elderly) couples...
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