reading is my escape

i still remember the excitement of doing the occasional night shifts. right now, i am rostered with one of the emergency teams and there is nothing at all exciting (or natural) about arriving for the start of your shift at 10pm. i am not sure which is the culprit- the compulsory attendance , having further commitments in the morning, or their regularity.

on the other hand, i have just finished a most excellent book- Volume 1 of The astonishing life of Octavian Nothing, by M.T. Anderson.

intelligent, thought provoking, and quite beautifully written.

{an excerpt from when Octavian is being punished}

I waited, my arms outstretched at either side, until he turned again, and began to stack them, volume after volume, on my hands.
"When I was a boy," said he, "this was my punishment. Standing with Milton weighing upon one hand and Shakespeare the other. But you... you shall be encumbered with your own past, hm?"
My hands bobbed beneath the weight.
"Drop one," he said, "and you shall be caned." He stepped into the experimental chamber and shouter for Bono.
Turning back to me, he said, "Here, my boy, was the miraculous aspect of this little torture, as I found. When twenty minutes had passed, and I was permitted to set down the volumes, or they were taken from my hands- when I was relieved of the weight of the books- I marked that as I dropped my empty arms, they rose again of their own accord..... They drifted upwards. They felt as light as air. I could not keep them down. 'Twas an ecstatic sensation.... My arms yearned for the stance of punishment; and when they lifted thus, I could have been flying. This, you must understand, Octavian, is the true and sublime end of discipline: that you may rise into a new and glorious buoyancy."

-- MT Anderson, The astonishing life of Octavian Nothing: Volume 1 The pox party (p.50)