Norms imply violation of norm...

Norms imply violation of norms: we call something a ‘norm’ merely because it is more frequent than its opposite (the ‘violation of the norm’). That’s as true for human sexual norms as for other norms. - P5

Thus, even a non-mammalo-centric view reinforces our dog’s interpretation: we are the ones who are bizarre. - P8

Norms imply violation of norms: we call something a ‘norm’ merely because it is more frequent than its opposite (the ‘violation of the norm’). That’s as true for human sexual norms as for other norms. - P5

This book is a speculative ac...

This book is a speculative account of how human sexuality came to be the way it now is.

Sex in social mammals is generally carried out in public, before the gazes of other members of the troop. - P2

Thus, sex is emphatically not just for fun and is rarely divorced from its function of fertilization. This generalization too admits exceptions: sex is flagrantly separated from reproduction in a few species, including bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) and dolphins. - P3

By menopause is meant a complete cessation of fertility within a time span that is much briefer than the previous fertile career, and that is followed by an infertile life span of significant length. - P4

[오늘의 한문장] 대성당 (무선)

그러니까 맹인이, 아내의 오랜 친구가 하룻밤 묵기 위해 찾아오고 있었다. 그의 아내는 죽었다. 때문에 그는 코네티컷에 사는, 죽은 아내의 친척들을 방문하고 있었다. 처의 친척집에서 그는 내 아내에게 전화를 걸었다. 미리 약속해둘 일들이 있었다. 그가 다섯 시간 동안 기차를 타고 오면, 아내는 역에서 그를 맞이할 예정이었다. 십 년 전 여름, 시애틀에서 그를 위해 일한 뒤로 그녀는 한 번도 그를 만나지 못했다. 하지만 그녀와 맹인은 계속 연락하고 있었다. 그들은 말로 녹음한 테이프를 우편으로 주고받았다. 내게는 그의 방문이 달가울 리 없었다. 나로서는 전혀 모르는 사람이었다. 게다가 눈이 멀었다는 사실도 마음에 걸렸다. 눈이 멀었다는 게 뭘까 생각해보면 영화에서 본 것들만 떠오른다. 영화에서 맹인들은 천천히 움직이고 웃는 법이 없었다. 때로 그들은 맹인 안내견을 따라가기도 했다. 우리집에 맹인이 온다니, 학수고대할 일은 아니었다.

-알라딘 eBook <대성당> (레이먼드 카버 지음, 김연수 옮김) 중에서 - P274

To his tally kept on a piece ...

To his tally kept on a piece of paper in his crew quarters, Roman will add the eighty-eighth line. Not to wish the time away but to try to tether it to something countable. Otherwise – otherwise the centre drifts. Space shreds time to pieces. They were told this in training: keep a tally each day when you wake, tell yourself this is the morning of a new day. Be clear with yourself on this matter. This is the morning of a new day. - P6

There was a lesson at school about the painting Las Meninas, when Shaun was fifteen. It was about how the painting disoriented its viewer and left them not knowing what it was they were looking at. It’s a painting inside a painting, his teacher had said – look closely. Look here. Velázquez, the artist, is in the painting, at his easel, painting a painting, and what he’s painting is the king and queen, but they’re outside of the painting, where we are, looking in, and the only way we know they’re there is because we can see their reflection in a mirror directly in front of us. What the king and queen are looking at is what we’re looking at – their daughter and her ladies-in-waiting, which is what the painting is called – Las Meninas, ‘The Ladies-in-Waiting’. - P8

The earth, from here, is like heaven. It flows with colour. A burst of hopeful colour. When we’re on that planet we look up and think heaven is elsewhere, but here is what the astronauts and cosmonauts sometimes think: maybe all of us born to it have already died and are in an afterlife. If we must go to an improbable, hard-to-believe-in place when we die, that glassy, distant orb with its beautiful lonely light shows could well be it. - P12

They are a choreographing of movements and functions of the ship’s body as it enacts its perfect choreography of the planet. Anton – quiet, and dry in his humour, sentimental, crying openly at films, at scenes outside the window – Anton the spaceship’s heart. Pietro its mind, Roman (the current commander, dextrous and capable, able to fix anything, control the robotic arm with millimetre precision, wire the most complex circuit board) its hands, Shaun its soul (Shaun there to convince them all that they have souls), Chie (methodical, fair, wise, not-quite definable or pin-downable) its conscience, Nell (with her eight-litre diving lungs) its breath. - P29

And the earth, a complex orchestra of sounds, an out-of-tune band practice of saws and woodwind, a spacey full-throttle distortion of engines, a speed-of-light battle between galactic tribes, a ricochet of trills from a damp rainforest morning, the opening bars of electronic trance, and behind it all a ringing sound, a sound gathered in a hollow throat. A fumbled harmony taking shape. The sound of very far-off voices coming together in a choral mass, an angelic sustained note that expands through the static. You think it’ll burst into song, the way the choral sound emerges full of intent, and this polished-bead planet sounds briefly so sweet. Its light is a choir. Its light is an ensemble of a trillion things which rally and unify for a few short moments before falling back into the rin-tin-tin and jumbled tumbling of static galactic woodwind rainforest trance of a wild and lilting world. - P207

There’s his wife at home, herself so long unwell, and he’s told their children he’ll let nothing bad happen to any of them ever, as if such a thing were within his gift. He’s the vehicle that carries them all through darkness, and the weight of that has borne him along for years and years. But he, too, is preyed on by darkness, as we all are. He never knew how to tell them that. He never knew how to say to his wife what he wanted amicably to say: Zabudem, ladno? Let’s forget it, shall we? Let’s call it a day. We don’t love one another any more, why complicate what’s simple? When he found the lump those were the words that came straight to his mind. Zabudem, ladno? They were casual and easy in his head as if he were proposing to end an awkward conversation. They were light words and they ended the decades of struggle inside him, and he feels sure that in the saying of the words they will all be released – he, his wife, their children – they will be released from the darkness he is supposed to and could never save them from. - P140

피에트로는 카메라와 정상 시력과 두근대는 심장을 가진...

피에트로는 카메라와 정상 시력과 두근대는 심장을 가진 비로봇으로 지구의 특이점 앞에서 삐끗한다. 촬영 중인 그의 옆구리에 쿵, 충격이 전해진다.

-알라딘 eBook <궤도> (서맨사 하비) 중에서 - P53

그리고 지구의 소리는 오케스트라처럼 복잡하다. 조율하지 않은 채 활을 켜고 목관 악기를 부는 밴드 연습 소리, 전속력으로 질주하며 뒤틀리는 엔진의 광활한 소리, 은하계 부족들이 빛의 속도로 벌이는 전쟁 소리, 습한 열대 우림 아침에 반사되어 퍼지는 새들의 지저귐, 일렉트로닉 트랜스 음악의 도입부, 그리고 배경으로는 울림소리가, 빈 목구멍에 모이는 소리가 깔린다. 화음이 어설프게 형체를 잡아 간다. 아주 멀리 떨어진 목소리들이 합쳐진다. 천상의 지속음이 잡음을 뚫고 길게 펼쳐진다. 아주 신중하게 시작되는 합창 소리처럼 노래가 터져 나올 것 같다고, 당신은 생각한다. 그리고 윤이 나는 구슬 행성은 잠깐이지만 아주 달콤한 노래를 부른다. 지구의 빛이 합창한다. 그 빛은 1조 개 물체들의 앙상블이다. 짧은 순간에 모여 하나가 되고는, 거칠고 경쾌한 세상의 잡음 은하계 목관 악기 열대 우림 트랜스 음악으로 요란하게 뒤죽박죽 다시 흩어진다.

-알라딘 eBook <궤도> (서맨사 하비) 중에서 - P188

집에 있는 아내도 오랫동안 몸이 좋지 않았다. 그는 아이들에게 이렇게 말해 뒀다. 너희 중 누구에게도 나쁜 일이 일어나지 않게 하겠다고. 마치 자신에게 그럴 능력이 있는 것처럼. 안톤은 온 가족을 등에 업고 어둠을 지나는 중이고, 그 무게를 아주 오랫동안 지고 살았다. 그러나 그도, 우리 모두 그렇듯, 어둠의 먹잇감이 되었다. 이걸 가족에게 뭐라고 말해야 할까. 어떻게 해야 기분 상하지 않게 아내에게 말할 수 있을까.자부뎀, 라드노? 우리 그냥 잊는 거 어때? 관두자. 더 이상 사랑하지도 않는데, 간단한 문제를 뭐 하러 복잡하게 만들어? 혹을 발견했을 때 안톤은 곧장 그 문장을 떠올렸다.자부뎀, 라드노? 머릿속에서는 참 산뜻하고 쉬운 말이었다. 어색한 대화 정도를 끝마치자고 하는 것처럼. 그 가벼운 말 한마디면 수십 년 동안 속 썩였던 내면의 고통도 끝이었다. 그는 그 말을 내뱉으면 자신과 아내와 아이들까지 모두 해방되리라고 확신한다. 구해 내야 했으나 절대 구해 낼 수 없었던 어둠에서 해방될 것이다.

-알라딘 eBook <궤도> (서맨사 하비) 중에서 - P129