Reading progress update: I've read 3 out of 340 pages.
Now what we don’t want is Facts. What we want is bewilderment. What we want is repetition. What we want is repetition. What we want is people in power saying the truth is not the truth. What we want is elected members of parliament saying knife getting heated stuck in her front and twisted things like bring your own noose we want governing members of parliament in the house of commons shouting kill yourself at opposition members of parliament we want powerful people saying they want other powerful people chopped up in bags in my freezer we want muslim women a joke in a newspaper column we want the laugh we want the sound of that laugh behind them everywhere they go. We want the people we call foreign to feel foreign we need to make it clear they can’t have rights unless we say so. What we want is outrage offence distraction. What we need is to say thinking is elite knowledge is elite what we need is people feeling left behind disenfranchised what we need is people feeling. What we need is panic we want subconscious panic we want conscious panic too. We need emotion we want righteousness we want anger. We need all that patriotic stuff.
Fresh off the press, Spring landed on my kindle this morning (I may have to pick up the gorgeous hardback edition this weekend...just because).
So, after a few weeks of watching the parliamentary debates on most nights, the opening paragraph of Ali Smith's new book is already resonating with me.
Unfortunately, I'll need to put off further reading until my lunch break. :(