Didn't like it.
2015년 8월 21일 금요일
2015년 8월 6일 목요일
Phil Klay의 'Redepolyment' 중
We shot dogs. Not by accident. We did it on purpose, and we called it Operation Scooby. I'm a dog person, so I thought about that a lot.
First time was instinct. I hear O'Leary go, "Jesus," and there's a skinny brown dog lapping up blood the same way he'd lap up water from a bowl. It wasn't American blood, but still, there's that dog, lapping it up. And that's the last straw, I guess, and then it's open season on dogs.
I had at least thought there would be nobility in war. I know it exists. There are so many stories, and some of them have to be true. But I see normal men, trying to do good, beaten down by horror, by their inability to quell their own rages, by their masculine posturing and their so-called hardness, their desire to be tougher, and therefore crueler, than their circumstance.
And yet, I have this sense that this place holier then back home. Gluttonous, fat, oversexed, overconsuming, materialist home, where we're too lazy to see our own faults. At least here, Rodriguez has the decency to worry about hell.
As a young priest, I'd had a father scream at me once. I was working in a hospital. He'd lost his son. (skip)
Doctors repeatedly asked the father to authorize last-ditch attempts to keep his child breathing. Naturally, he did. So they proceeded to stab his son with needles, perform emergency surgery. Torture his child in front of him and at his request in a hopeless effort to continue a tiny, doomed life for a few minutes more. At the end, they were left with a very small and terribly battered corpse.
And then I came along, after the chemotherapy, after the bankrupting bills and the deterioration of his and his wife's careers, after the months of hoping and despair, after every possible medical violation had denied his child grace even in death. And I dared suggest some good had come of it? It was unbearable. It was disgusting. It was lie.
There was a human warmth to the paper.
it's because he thinks his suffering justifies making you suffer. If his story about his beating is true, it means the Marines who beat him think their suffering justifies making him suffer.
"It's not whether it happened or not. You don't talk about some of the shit that happened. We lived in a place that was totally different from anything those hippies in that audience could possibly understand. All those jerks who think they're so good 'cause they've never had to go out on a street in Ramadi and weigh your life against the lives of the people in the building you're taking fire from. You can't describe it to someone who wasn't there, you can hardly remember how it was yourself because it makes so little sense. And to act like somebody could live and fight for months in that shit and not go insane, well, that's what's really crazy. And then Alex is gonna go and act like a big hero, telling everybody how bad we were. We weren't bad. I wanted to shoot every Iraqi I saw, every day. And I never did.
- 전쟁에 관한 소설, 그것도 얼마되지 않은, 혹은 현재도 진행중인 전쟁에 관한 소설. National Book Award를 받은 이 소설을 차에 가지고 다니며 질기게도 오랫동안 읽었다. 얼마나 이해할 수 있을까? 직접 경험하지 않았지만 뉴스와 소셜미디어에서 지겹도록 들은 그 전쟁에 대해서 알 만큼 안다고 섣불리 생각하지는 않았을까 막연한 죄책감이 든다.
이 책은 여러가지 이유로 전쟁에 참여하게 된 사람들의 다각적 시각으로 쓰여졌다. 그러나 누구의 시각이든 좋은 의도에서의 전쟁의 참여이건, 막연한 동경이건, 실질적 이유이건 간에 민간인으로서 이해하기 힘든 그 곳에서의 경험은 모든 참전군인들을 또 다른 현실인 군대 밖에서의 삶으로부터 alienate 시킨다. 그리고 또한 참전한 사람들의 관점과 경험의 폭에 따라 모두 다른 전쟁을 경험하게 되는 것이다. 그러나 그것은 중요한가? 전쟁에서 군인들의 생각이 중요한가? 체스판의 말에 불과한 참전 군인들의 생각이 과연 중요한가? 그들이 느끼는 분노, 절망, 죄책감은 중요한가? 각각의 화자의 감정에 가 닿기에는 나는 너무도 멀리 떨어져 있다. 적지에서 식어가는 아이의 몸을 적외선 카메라로 바라보는 것은 피흘리는 죽음을 눈 앞에서 보는 것과는 다를 것이다. 그러나 나는 그러한 것도 본 적이 없지 않은가? 그리고 본국으로 돌아와 전장으로 떠나기 전과 하나도 변한 것 없는 편안하고도 흥청거리는 사회 안으로 들어갈 때, 오직 변한 것은 자기 자신 뿐이고, 자신과 자신의 동료들의 희생에 바뀐 것이나 기억되는 것이 하나도 없음을 느낄 때, 아마도 그들의 박탈감은 너무도 클 것이다.
어떤 명분으로라도 누군가를 죽이도록 내몰린 사람들, 그들을 그 무엇으로도 함부로 평가하거나 판단하거나 심지어 이해한다고 말할 수는 없을 것이다. 다만 진심으로 그들의 경험을 폄하하지 않고 존중할 수 있어야 한다는 생각이 들게 만든 책.
First time was instinct. I hear O'Leary go, "Jesus," and there's a skinny brown dog lapping up blood the same way he'd lap up water from a bowl. It wasn't American blood, but still, there's that dog, lapping it up. And that's the last straw, I guess, and then it's open season on dogs.
I had at least thought there would be nobility in war. I know it exists. There are so many stories, and some of them have to be true. But I see normal men, trying to do good, beaten down by horror, by their inability to quell their own rages, by their masculine posturing and their so-called hardness, their desire to be tougher, and therefore crueler, than their circumstance.
And yet, I have this sense that this place holier then back home. Gluttonous, fat, oversexed, overconsuming, materialist home, where we're too lazy to see our own faults. At least here, Rodriguez has the decency to worry about hell.
As a young priest, I'd had a father scream at me once. I was working in a hospital. He'd lost his son. (skip)
Doctors repeatedly asked the father to authorize last-ditch attempts to keep his child breathing. Naturally, he did. So they proceeded to stab his son with needles, perform emergency surgery. Torture his child in front of him and at his request in a hopeless effort to continue a tiny, doomed life for a few minutes more. At the end, they were left with a very small and terribly battered corpse.
And then I came along, after the chemotherapy, after the bankrupting bills and the deterioration of his and his wife's careers, after the months of hoping and despair, after every possible medical violation had denied his child grace even in death. And I dared suggest some good had come of it? It was unbearable. It was disgusting. It was lie.
There was a human warmth to the paper.
it's because he thinks his suffering justifies making you suffer. If his story about his beating is true, it means the Marines who beat him think their suffering justifies making him suffer.
"It's not whether it happened or not. You don't talk about some of the shit that happened. We lived in a place that was totally different from anything those hippies in that audience could possibly understand. All those jerks who think they're so good 'cause they've never had to go out on a street in Ramadi and weigh your life against the lives of the people in the building you're taking fire from. You can't describe it to someone who wasn't there, you can hardly remember how it was yourself because it makes so little sense. And to act like somebody could live and fight for months in that shit and not go insane, well, that's what's really crazy. And then Alex is gonna go and act like a big hero, telling everybody how bad we were. We weren't bad. I wanted to shoot every Iraqi I saw, every day. And I never did.
- 전쟁에 관한 소설, 그것도 얼마되지 않은, 혹은 현재도 진행중인 전쟁에 관한 소설. National Book Award를 받은 이 소설을 차에 가지고 다니며 질기게도 오랫동안 읽었다. 얼마나 이해할 수 있을까? 직접 경험하지 않았지만 뉴스와 소셜미디어에서 지겹도록 들은 그 전쟁에 대해서 알 만큼 안다고 섣불리 생각하지는 않았을까 막연한 죄책감이 든다.
이 책은 여러가지 이유로 전쟁에 참여하게 된 사람들의 다각적 시각으로 쓰여졌다. 그러나 누구의 시각이든 좋은 의도에서의 전쟁의 참여이건, 막연한 동경이건, 실질적 이유이건 간에 민간인으로서 이해하기 힘든 그 곳에서의 경험은 모든 참전군인들을 또 다른 현실인 군대 밖에서의 삶으로부터 alienate 시킨다. 그리고 또한 참전한 사람들의 관점과 경험의 폭에 따라 모두 다른 전쟁을 경험하게 되는 것이다. 그러나 그것은 중요한가? 전쟁에서 군인들의 생각이 중요한가? 체스판의 말에 불과한 참전 군인들의 생각이 과연 중요한가? 그들이 느끼는 분노, 절망, 죄책감은 중요한가? 각각의 화자의 감정에 가 닿기에는 나는 너무도 멀리 떨어져 있다. 적지에서 식어가는 아이의 몸을 적외선 카메라로 바라보는 것은 피흘리는 죽음을 눈 앞에서 보는 것과는 다를 것이다. 그러나 나는 그러한 것도 본 적이 없지 않은가? 그리고 본국으로 돌아와 전장으로 떠나기 전과 하나도 변한 것 없는 편안하고도 흥청거리는 사회 안으로 들어갈 때, 오직 변한 것은 자기 자신 뿐이고, 자신과 자신의 동료들의 희생에 바뀐 것이나 기억되는 것이 하나도 없음을 느낄 때, 아마도 그들의 박탈감은 너무도 클 것이다.
어떤 명분으로라도 누군가를 죽이도록 내몰린 사람들, 그들을 그 무엇으로도 함부로 평가하거나 판단하거나 심지어 이해한다고 말할 수는 없을 것이다. 다만 진심으로 그들의 경험을 폄하하지 않고 존중할 수 있어야 한다는 생각이 들게 만든 책.
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