He Had A Happy Canine Way Of

Nell Zink Is A Writer Of Extraordinary Talent And Range. Her Work Insistently Raises The Possibility That The World Is Larger And Stranger Than The World You Think You Know.

Depression Presents Itself As A Realism Regarding The Rottenness Of The World In General And The Rottenness Of Your Life In Particular. But The Realism Is Merely A Mask For Depression's Actual Essence, Which Is An Overwhelming Estrangement From Humanity. The More Persuaded You Are Of Your Unique Access To The Rottenness, The More Afraid You Become Of Engaging With The World; And The Less You Engage With The World, The More Perfidiously Happy-faced The Rest Of Humanity Seems For Continuing To Engage With It.

He Watched A Catbird Hopping Around In An Azalea That Was Readying Itself To Bloom; He Envied The Bird For Knowing Nothing Of What He Knew; He Would Have Swapped Souls With It In A Heartbeat. And Then To Take Wing, To Know The Air's Buoyancy Even For An Hour: The Trad Was A No-brainer, And The Catbird, With Its Lively Indifference To Him, Its Sureness Of Physical Selfhood, Seemed Well Aware Of How Preferable It Was To Be The Bird.

If You Look At The New Testament, It's A Gospel Of Love. Yes, There's Talk Of Judgement And There's Talk Of Heaven And There's Talk Of People Not Getting Into Heaven, But It Doesn't Seem To Me That The Fundamental Message Of The Gospels Was One Of Guilt And Retribution So Much As Love.

The Human Species Was Given Dominion Over The Earth And Took The Opportunity To Exterminate Other Species And Warm The Atmosphere And Generally Ruin Things In Its Own Image, But It Paid This Price For Its Privileges: That The Finite And Specific Animal Body Of This Species Contained A Brain Capable Of Conceiving The Infinite And Wishing To Be Infinite Itself.