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fe25e55
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he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense.
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Julian Barnes |
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97cea97
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When you are in your twenties, even if you're confused and uncertain about your aims and purposes, you have a strong sense of what life itself is, and of what you in life are, and might become.
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youth
twenties
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Julian Barnes |
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f301156
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Love's elastic. It's not a question of watering down. It adds on. It doesn't take away. So there's no need to worry about that.
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Julian Barnes |
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ca83acb
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You only followed where you were going if you wanted to get back to where you had started from, and she knew that was impossible.
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Julian Barnes |
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bccaa30
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The more so because, among its repetitions, it is always looking for new ways to prick you.
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Julian Barnes |
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6c00bde
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At best you have one of those debilitating conditions which come in many forms, and which some people decline to admit actually exist.
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Julian Barnes |
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3d4602c
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Silent or gagged women are powerless women. A powerful woman is one who can speak out to challenge existing power structures or to explore previously taboo territory.
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Julian Barnes |
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4f9fb79
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Den leo oti o erotas tha se kanei eutukhismeno-propantos auto de len leo. Ki an teino na pistepso kati, auto einai pos tha se kanei dustukhismeno. eite amesos, kathos se diaperna e aisthese tes asumbatotetas, eite argotera, otan to saraki pou douleeuei athoruba epi khronia tha kanei to throno tou episkopou na katareusei. Mporei omos kaneis na to pisteuei auto kai na exakolouthei na epimenei oti e mone mas elpida einai o erotas. Kai einai e..
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Julian Barnes |
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d8e9c08
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I was deeply misled by Lady Chatterley's Lover, which seemed to insist that running naked through damp undergrowth with wild flowers entwined in your pubic hair was just about the closest thing to heaven.
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Julian Barnes |
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ca3d690
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I could only reply that I think---I theorise--that something--something else--happens to the memory over time. For years you survive with the same loops, the same facts and the same emotions...The events reconfirm the emotions--resentment, a sense of injustice, relief--and vice versa. There seems no way of accessing anything else; the case is closed. But what if, even at a late stage, your emotions relating to those long-ago events and peop..
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Julian Barnes |
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91c1356
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This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents--were they the stuff of Literature? At best, they might aspire to the condition of onlookers and bystanders, part of a social backdrop against which real, true, important things could happen.
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Julian Barnes |
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678e91e
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Of course, there were other sorts of literature--theoretical, self-referential, lachrymosely autobiographical--but they were just dry wanks. Real literature was about psychological, emotional and social truth as demonstrated by the actions and reflections of its protagonists; the novel was about character developed over time.
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Julian Barnes |
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86c7e00
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We could not be further from ballooning's established tropes: freedom, spiritual exaltation, human progress. Redon's eternally open eye is deeply unsettling. The eye in the sky; God's security camera. And that lumpish human head invites us to conclude that the colonisation of space doesn't purify the colonisers; all that has happened is that we have brought our sinfulness to a new location.
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Julian Barnes |
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cd1c51a
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you have blown a large breach in the walls of my existence.
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Julian Barnes |
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894fa9e
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Naturally, she had enemies. Her success, her sex, her racial origin and her bohemian extravagance reminded the puritanical why actors used to be buried in unhallowed ground. And over the decades her acting style, once so original, inevitably dated, since naturalness onstage is just as much an artifice as naturalism in the novel. If the magic always worked for some--Ellen Terry called her "transparent as an azalea" and compared her stage pre..
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Julian Barnes |
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1dbf20f
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There had been addition--and subtraction--in my life, but how much multiplication?
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Julian Barnes |
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2d303c0
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Zashcho tvorbite ni podtikvat da presledvame pisatelite? Zashcho ne ostavim khorata na mira? Ne mozhem li da se zadovolim samo s knigite im?
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Julian Barnes |
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6ab3eeb
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And he was not angry. But, before the pain set in, he had the time to be rueful. He had laid everything out, the best of himself, and it had not been enough. He had considered himself a bohemian, but she had proved too bohemian for him. And he had failed to understand her explanation of herself.
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Julian Barnes |
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47150f5
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So now, contended indifference before Middlesbrough against Slovan Bratislava coexisted with a craving for an art in which violent, overwhelming, hysterical and destructive emotion was the norm.
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Julian Barnes |
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ec7289f
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Isn't there something between stagnation and heading somewhere?" "Like?" "Like having a nice time. Enjoy the day and all that?" --
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Julian Barnes |
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9197190
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She is the centre of my world. The Armenians believed that Ararat was the centre of the world; but the mountain was divided between three great empires, and the Armenians ended up with none of it, so I shan't continue this comparison. I love you.
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Julian Barnes |
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94ecc60
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In an ideal world, a young man should not be an ironical person. At that age, irony prevents growth, stunts the imagination. It is best to start life in a cheerful and open state of mind, believing in others, being optimistic, being frank with everyone about everything. And then, as one comes to understand things and people better, to develop a sense of irony. The natural progression of human life is from optimism to pessimism; and a sense ..
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Julian Barnes |
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c912470
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We could start, perhaps, with the seemingly simple question, What is History? Any thoughts, Webster?' 'History is the lies of the victors,' I replied, a little too quickly. 'Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated. Simpson?' Colin was more prepared than me. 'History is a raw onion sandwich, sir.' 'For what reason?' 'It just repeats, sir. It burps. We've seen i..
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Julian Barnes |
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bcb033c
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Cut privet still smells of sour apples, as it did when I was sixteen; but this is a rare, lingering exception. At that age, everything seemed more open to analogy, to metaphor, than it does now. There were more meanings, more interpretations, a greater variety of available truths. There was more symbolism, Things contained more.
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meaning
sixteen
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Julian Barnes |
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ebd0e4a
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Fearless to the strong; humble to the weak,
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Julian Barnes |
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aaa5f4f
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the complications of life do not end at the altar; some might say that this is where they begin.
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Julian Barnes |
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a5a8a73
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Honour is not just a matter of internal good feeling, but also of external behaviour.
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Julian Barnes |
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6f03b3f
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If you saved yourself, you might also save those around you, those you loved. And since you would do anything in the world to save those you loved, you did anything in the world to save yourself. And because there was no choice, equally there was no possibility of avoiding moral corruption. --
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Julian Barnes |
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e5db0f2
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For most of us, the first experience of love, even if it doesn't work out - perhaps especially when it doesn't work out - promises that here is the thing that validates, that vindicates life. And though subsequent years might alter this view, until some of us give up on it altogether, when love first strikes, there's nothing like it, is there? Agreed?
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Julian Barnes |
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f523f78
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Manchmal glaube ich, es ist der Sinn des Lebens, uns mit seinem letzendlichen Verlust zu versohnen, indem es uns zermurbt, uns beweist, auch wenn das eine Weile dauern kann, dass das Leben gar nicht so toll ist.
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Julian Barnes |
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699bcce
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Nu cred ca mi-ar placea un zeu dezaprobator. Oricum ai parte de destula dezaprobare in viata. Mila, iertare si-ntelegere - de astea avem nevoie. Si de ideea unui plan de ansamblu.
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Julian Barnes |
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a716146
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The work of art is a pyramid which stands in the desert, uselessly: jackals piss at the base of it, and bourgeois clamber to the top of it;
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Julian Barnes |
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f6761a3
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Akh, vek mifov i legend. Sharleman', rytsarstvo, gornyi Pireneiskii peresheek, budushchee Evropy, budushchee vsego Khristianskogo mira na chashe vesov, geroicheskii ar'ergard, rog zovushchii na bitvu, chelovecheskaia zhizn', pust' sama po sebe nichtozhnaia, pust' vsego lish' igrushka v rukakh sluchaia, no tem ne menee vbroshena v stolknovenie bolee znachitel'nykh sil. Byt' peshkoi deistvitel'no mnogoe znachilo vo vremena, kogda na shakhmat..
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past
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Julian Barnes |
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522ec8e
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Mozhet eto predznamenovanie? Kto znaet? V le bon vieux temps , kogda my veselo katalis' po proshlogodnemu snegu, predznamenovanie ne rasstavalos' s prilagatel'nym i bylo zloveshchim. Padaiushchaia zvezda, prochertivshaia traektoriiu na barkhate nebes, poliarnaia sova, vsiu noch' sidevshaia na vetke trekliatogo duba, banal'nyi voi volkov na kladbishche - ne vsegda mozhno bylo dogadat'sia, chto oni predveshchaiut, no bylo chertovski iasno, ch..
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Julian Barnes |
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c7c0705
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Ia khochu vstretit' takogo muzhchinu, kotoryi, kogda uznaesh' ego poluchshe, budet takim zhe, kakim kazhetsia, kogda vy tol'ko poznakomilis'. Ia khochu vstretit' takogo muzhchinu, kotoryi zvonit, esli poobeshchal pozvonit' i prikhodit domoi, esli poobeshchal, chto pridet. Ia khochu vstretit' takogo muzhchinu, kotorogo ustraivaet to, kakoi on est'. Ia khochu vstretit' takogo muzhchinu, kotoryi khochet vstretit' takuiu zhenshchinu, kak ia...
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men
relationships
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Julian Barnes |
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c806b4b
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I survived. 'He survived to tell the tale' - that's what people say, don't they? History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.
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Julian Barnes |
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3d2ec0c
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She'd been imagining for the last fifteen or more years that if you disappeared, if you abandoned a wife and child, you did so for a better life: more happiness, more sex, more money, more of whatever was missing from your previous life.
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Julian Barnes |
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7f9f5d4
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I znao je, dakle, da se sve tachne definitsije umetnosti odnose iskljuchivo na nju samu, a da sve pogreshne definitsije pripisuju umetnosti neku odredjenu funktsiju.
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Julian Barnes |
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4e3cafa
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Kiedy jestesmy mlodzi, kazdy powyzej trzydziestki wyglada na czlowieka w srednim wieku, kazdy po piecdziesiatce na starca. I czas dowodzi, wraz ze swoim uplywem, ze nie mylilismy sie tak bardzo. Te drobne roznice wieku -- tak istotne i olbrzymie, kiedy jestesmy mlodzi -- ulegaja erozji. Koniec koncow wszyscy zaczynamy nalezec do tej samej kategorii, kategorii niemlodych. Sam nigdy sie tym specjalnie nie przejmowalem. Sa jednak wyjatki od t..
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time
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Julian Barnes |
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777cf08
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The dangerous charm of GPC was that everything in the world could be called up; if you didn't look out, a couple of sessions might turn you from a serious enquirer into a mere gape-mouthed browser.
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information-age
world-wide-web
prescient
internet
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Julian Barnes |
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2cec62b
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perhaps the sweetest moment in writing is the arrival of that idea for a book which never has to be written, which is never sullied with a definite shape, which never needs to be exposed to a less loving gaze than that of its author.
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Julian Barnes |
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ae8b954
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Mystification is simple. Clarity is the hardest thing of all. You trust the mystifier more if you know his deliberately choosing not to be lucid. You would trust Picasso all the way because he could draw like Ingres.
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Julian Barnes |
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1528fba
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Someone once said that his favourite times in history were when things were collapsing, because that meant something new was being born. Does this make any sense if we apply it to our individual lives? To die when something new is being born--even if that something new is our very own self? Because just as all political and historical change sooner or later disappoints, so does adulthood. So does life. Sometimes I think the purpose of life ..
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Julian Barnes |
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99f0f2e
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I remember, in no particular order: --a shiny inner wrist; --steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it; --gouts of sperm circling a plughole, before being sluiced down the full length of a tall house; --a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams; --another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface; ..
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time
memory
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Julian Barnes |