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The Fault Line: Traveling the Other Europe, From Finland to Ukraine

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Paolo Rumiz

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“E adesso, vecchio barbagianni, questa fottuta frontiera ti mancherà," (…). Diavolo, pensai, non c’è nessuna ragione per rimpiangere la frontiera. In breve tempo capii. Mi mancava il sogno, la linea d'ombra da valicare, il senso del proibito. La mia prima spinta al viaggio non era nata proprio dall'esistenza della Frontiera?”

ViaggioIron CurtainViaggiareSognoBorderTriesteSloveniaFrontiera
Book:The Fault Line: Traveling the Other Europe, From Finland to Ukraine
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“For a few years Trieste once more entered the world’s consciousness, as the Powers argued what to do with it. No longer one of the supreme ports of Europe, it became instead one of those places, like Danzig or Tangier, that have been argued about at international conferences, written about in pamphlets, questioned about in parliamentary debates, less as living cities than as political hypotheses. Winston Churchill, in a famous speech in America, warned the world that an iron curtain had been laid across Europe, dividing democracy and Communism “from Stettin to Trieste.” Abroad the statesmen endlessly parleyed; at home the Triestini of different loyalties, chanting slogans and waving their respective flags, surged about the place rioting. Finally in 1954 the disconsolate and bewildered seaport was given its solution, and Trieste has been what it has been ever since, a geographical and historical anomaly, Italian by sovereignty but in temperament more or less alone.”

Trieste
Book:Trieste And The Meaning Of Nowhere
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“A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, “Suicide is selfishness.” Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reasons: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it—suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching. The only selfishness lies in ruining strangers’ days by forcing ’em to witness a grotesqueness. So I’ll make a thick turban from several towels to muffle the shot and soak up the blood, and do it in the bathtub, so it shouldn’t stain any carpets. Last night I left a letter under the manager’s day-office door—he’ll find it at eight A.M. tomorrow—informing him of the change in my existential status, so with luck an innocent chambermaid will be spared an unpleasant surprise. See, I do think of the little people”

DialogueReasoningLife ExperiencesLittle PeopleSucide
Book:Cloud Atlas
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