The Gravity of the Situation.

Last week I took it pretty light. I had to graduate, clean my apartment, host a friend, and thus was only able to finish the two works, Cannery Row and The Procession. But this week I've hit the books with both barrels. I finished The End of the Affair (a lovely British pun) by Graham Greene Sunday night, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski last night, and To Believe in God by Joseph Pintauro and Sister Corita today.

Prominently I have been wondering about Borowski's work. For in it he describes, from a non-Jewish perspective of Auschwitz and Birkenau, the millions of humans who willingly walked into gas chambers and crematoriums. Even those who knew what was to befall them went willingly. Why? How could so many allow themselves to be led silently to such a fate? According to the book, the gas chambers were some of the more merciful ways human life was taken, and yet it was all done without complaint.

It seems quite a few thoughts of mine have been given to this general slant: how would I behave if the most basic aspects of what I know as humanity are taken from me? I've decided that I don't. It would be unfair, and rather egotistical I believe, to deceive yourself with the notion that you are going to rise above the muddle, until you know what you are made out of. You can hope and pray that you would do the right thing, deny your bestial side for the sake of what Cormac McCarthy calls "the fire," but you will never truly know until the moment comes. Life is rife with braggarts who fell in their moment of trial.

A certain officer's story exemplified this utter confusion. His name was Schillinger. He bragged of personally killing over ten thousand individuals during the duration of Auschwitz, through "the fist, the club, or the revolver." The last day of his life, he went to take a woman from the gas chamber lines, apparently to use in his personal quarters. She refused, and threw gravel in his face, causing his revolver to drop from his hand. She "snatched it up, firing several shots into his abdomen," before being herded with the rest of the lines into the gas chamber. As Schillinger lay on the ground, his life expiring, he was heard to say "O God, my God, what have I done to deserve such suffering?" I just can't wrap my head around it.

Time advances along. Soon I will be headed into East of Eden, and in the meantime will try to land on some less weighty books. I'm doing well though, I actually am reading more than I'm buying for once, and if this trend continues for most of the summer, I'll be nigh finished with my pile. A rather hastily concocted estimate would probably put me at 500 pages thus far, but I'm reading About a Boy which is quite the page turner (as far as ease, not necessarily interest) and registers in at about 300 pages. Keep May 29th on your calendars, and good luck.