Thursday, September 18, 2014

On Seasons

No. It's all smoke and mirrors! The days get longer during the winter, and when we get to the longest one, the twenty-first of June, the beginning of summer, they start getting shorter again and it all heads right back downhill toward winter. You call it obvious, but once you disregard the obvious part, it can momentarily set you in a panic, make you want to grab something to hold on to. It's really like some great practical joke, so that the beginning of winter is actually spring, and the beginning of summer is actually autumn. It's as if we're being led around by the nose, in a circle, always lured on by the promise of something that is just another turning point in a circle. For a circle consists of nothing but elastic turning points, and so its curvature is immeasurable, with no steady definite direction, and so eternity is not 'straight ahead', but rather 'merry-go-round.'
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain pg364

2 comments:

JoAnn said...

I really need to read this book!

Connie said...

It's feeling very much like fall here today. I miss summer already! Great quote!