Hope: A Tragedy

Blurb on the back of Shalom Auslander's novel: Hope: A Tragedy says: "Can the darkest events of the twentieth century and of all human history be used to show the folly of hope? And can the result be so funny that you burst out laughing again and again?"

So many dark events, not sure I could say one was more evil than another. I also can not say that I burst out laughing "again and again", but most definitely burst out chuckling or laughing aloud several times. I also can not seem to turn more than a few pages without thinking: Ooh, love that, need to copy the quote. Have so many bookmarked pages, starting process of recording while still turning those pages.

What is that? he wondered.
A scratching?
A rapping?
A tap-tap-tapping.

Pondering what his father's last words might have been: Mistakes have been made?

Kugel had a theory. Kugel ws certain that whatever last words, a person chose to utter in his final moments, everyone shared the same final thought, and this was it: the bewildered,dumbfounded statement of his own disappointing cause of death.
Shark?
Train? Really? I got hit by a train?
Malaria? Fuck off. Malaria?

Crucifixion? thought Jesus. Get out.
Hemlock? thought Socrates.
Wrapped in a Torah scroll and burned alive? thought Rabbi Akiva. You have got to be shitting me.

Kugel didn't like attics. ~ "...full of ghosts and regret and longing and loss; worse yet was the implication in all this emotional hoarding that the past was preferable, to the present, that what came before beasts whatever comes next, so clutch it to your chests in mourning and dread as you head inot the unknowable but probably lousy future." ",,,photos of people whose names one can no longer recall..."

Most of Kugel's boxes were filled with books. Science, philosophy, art, literature, the philosophy of science, the science of literature, the art of philosophy, the science of art, books about other books and the books about those books about other books..."

"...atoning for something I didn't do, something my parents didn't do, something done just about before I was ever even born..." (I related to this, because I find it silly when groups demand apologies now for things done long ago by dead people long gone from the planet.)

"There comes a point where you realize that this is it; more of your life has been written than there is left to write, and you're not all that enthused about the pages you've got so far."