And yet more...

There is tedious, it is, to be quoting this old book all the time, I know. But I've never read anything whose protagonist is closer to my own soul. And moreover, Llewellyn seems to have perfectly captured the moment in history when everything that was good and beautiful in life was giving way to everything that is modern, and ugly, and greedy, and utilitarian, and soulless. Not only the loss of "the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green," (for what is the slag heap, but Mordor?) but of family, of community, and of identity. For no one I've ever read has so beautifully and perfectly portrayed what we lost when we lost femininity and womanness, and so also lost our manhood.

I'm almost done with the book, I promise.

"Something is strange in the faces of people, who live all their lives in a town. For their lives are full of the clock and their eyes are blind with seeing so many wonders, and they have no pleasure of expectation or prettiness of wish. Good things are heaped in the windows all round them, but their pockets are empty, and thus they suffer in their minds, for where they would own, now they must wish, and wishes denied soon turn to a lust that shows itself in the face. Too much to see, day after day, and too much noise for peace, and too little time in a round of the clock to sit by themselves, and think."

"O, there is lovely to feel a book, a good book, firm in the hand, for its fatness holds rich promise, and you are hot inside to think of good hours to come." 

-- Richard Llewellyn