Friday, June 5, 2009

The Star Thrower (2). Loren Eiseley.

Why read it? Eiseley’s sentences and essays haunt the reader. You can’t let them go, dismiss them. They remain in your mind, hooked there by ideas and images. The lead essay in this collection of his essays, “The Star Thrower,” projects the image of a lonely man walking the beach at dawn, picking up stranded starfish and flinging them back into the ocean so they can resume living. What does that image suggest to you?


Sample Quotes and Ideas:

“A little while ago—about one hundred million years, as the geologist estimated time in the history of our four-billion-year-old planet…. “ p. 67. ……….


“I was the only man in the world who saw him do it. Everybody else was hurrying.” p. 92. …………


“Ascending ape or fallen angel—man would have to make his choice.” p. 99.


On the faces on Easter Isle: “…the faces are formless, nameless; they represent no living style…are therefore all men and no man and they stare indifferently upon that rolling waste which has seen man come and will see him fade once more into the primal elements from which he came.” p. 105. ……….


“…I once received an unexpected lesson from a spider.” p. 117. ……….


“The specialized perish with the environment that created them.” p. 119.


To be continued.

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