Much Too Young, As They Always Say

Nearly all the larger buildings in W. and the surrounding area, the school, the railway station in Haslach and the turbine powerhouse, which supplied the entire district with electricity, had been designed on the drawing board of Ambrose and constructed under his supervision. He had died of a stroke, much too young as they always used to say, on May Day, 1933. He was found in his workplace, collapsed over the blueprint apparatus, a pencil behind his ear and a pair of compasses still in his hand.

W. G. Sebald, Vertigo

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Thought:

“The nation stirred in its husk and slept again. / Two slabs of bloody meat lay folded on its eyes like wings. / Like a hard glossy painting the nation slept. / Who can invent a new fear? / Yet I have invented sin, thought Isaiah, running his hand over the knobs. / And then because of a great attraction between them— / which Isaiah fought (for and against) for the rest of his life— God shattered Isaiah’s indifference. / God washed Isaiah’s hair in fire. / God took the stay. / From beneath its meat wings the nation listened. / You, said Isaiah. / No answer.”

Anne Carson | “Book of Isaiah”