Wen the Dreamer Quotes in Do Not Say We Have Nothing
The novel leaped and turned, as if entire chapters or pages had been ripped out; but Swirl, too, had been uprooted by the war, and she had no trouble filling in the missing gaps.
Wen’s nose began to bleed. The man slapped him repeatedly, as if he were disciplining a child. The crowd was laughing and the laughter had a sharp, bleating sound. Two men on the stage were kicked until they no longer moved Swirl thought she must be hallucinating when the guns were drawn and Da Ge and his wife were executed.
Big Mother continued through the rooms. Now she found herself at the foot of the alcove steps. Putting aside her walking stick. She paused to offer a poem to the God of Literature because, after all, these mysterious notebooks belonged to his domain. She recited:
When the mind is exalted,
the body is lightened
and feels as if it could float in the wind.
This city is famed as a center of letters;
and all you writers coming here
prove that the name of a great land
is made by better things than wealth.
“One should be careful of the sun,” the man said, as if talking to himself. He reached out, pulled the string, and the fan started up once more. “One should learn to practice in the shade.”
Written on the inside of the lining were the names of all the men who had died, and the dates of their falling. It is, I believe, the only accurate record that exists. He told me he had a plan to do something more. He would take the names of the dead and hide them, one by one, in the Book of Records, alongside May Fourth and Da-wei. He would populate this fictional world with true names and true deeds. They would live on, as dangerous as revolutionaries but as intangible as ghosts.
Men whose only crime was honest criticism were digging ditches and wasting away. Meanwhile, back home, their families lived in ignominy, their kids were hounded in schools or kicked out altogether, their houses were confiscated, their possessions trashed, their wives forced to beg on the streets […]
Wen the Dreamer Quotes in Do Not Say We Have Nothing
The novel leaped and turned, as if entire chapters or pages had been ripped out; but Swirl, too, had been uprooted by the war, and she had no trouble filling in the missing gaps.
Wen’s nose began to bleed. The man slapped him repeatedly, as if he were disciplining a child. The crowd was laughing and the laughter had a sharp, bleating sound. Two men on the stage were kicked until they no longer moved Swirl thought she must be hallucinating when the guns were drawn and Da Ge and his wife were executed.
Big Mother continued through the rooms. Now she found herself at the foot of the alcove steps. Putting aside her walking stick. She paused to offer a poem to the God of Literature because, after all, these mysterious notebooks belonged to his domain. She recited:
When the mind is exalted,
the body is lightened
and feels as if it could float in the wind.
This city is famed as a center of letters;
and all you writers coming here
prove that the name of a great land
is made by better things than wealth.
“One should be careful of the sun,” the man said, as if talking to himself. He reached out, pulled the string, and the fan started up once more. “One should learn to practice in the shade.”
Written on the inside of the lining were the names of all the men who had died, and the dates of their falling. It is, I believe, the only accurate record that exists. He told me he had a plan to do something more. He would take the names of the dead and hide them, one by one, in the Book of Records, alongside May Fourth and Da-wei. He would populate this fictional world with true names and true deeds. They would live on, as dangerous as revolutionaries but as intangible as ghosts.
Men whose only crime was honest criticism were digging ditches and wasting away. Meanwhile, back home, their families lived in ignominy, their kids were hounded in schools or kicked out altogether, their houses were confiscated, their possessions trashed, their wives forced to beg on the streets […]
