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psalm_onethirtyoneOMG. Waen just wrote the most beautiful, beautiful fic in the world. It is Twenty-Thousand Leagues. You are required to read it, because it is beautiful.
She would like to note that it was largely inspired by The Last Unicorn and Song of the Dodo, but I have read neither of these books and still find it beautiful, so apparently they are not instrumental for your enjoyment. Now. Read it. It's short. You have no excuse. <3 <3 <3
"Unicorn"
There was very little meaning in anything. So many men went through life without a purpose or a single real accomplishment. He was one of them.
There were so many men who took everything for granted, who merely lived their lives, who didn't actually look for anything else, and most of them didn't question why time passed. They didn't question what they were going to do in two or three hundred years. They didn't wonder what the world would be like when there was no free rolling land and no wild animals at all. The many men looked at the earth, thought of the present and lived.
He hadn't been particularly old when he saw his land invaded, cultivated, used. The people who came didn't look at the land and picture the strength of it, the way it fit so easily into what was around it, how it prospered or how, if it was barren, there was method to it. They looked at it and saw railways and progress; civilized houses; a canal.
And he watched what was a land of hills or plains; rivers; or just trickles of water become tracks for a train to glide on; a man-made sea; deeply rutted or paved roads.
So he fought for a while. He fought for his people and his land. Which of the two suffered worse for the men coming? So many people were killed. He reminded himself that they would have been killed anyway. He thought of how they would have been disposed of some way or other, how they would have died from foreign diseases.
He watched his people fall from bullets and explosions, and bad wounds that never healed. There were worse wounds, though. There were the ones that you could see when you glanced around a village, or perhaps an old deserted prison, or the ruins of a city. Proud, strong, pleased people torn to shreds. People who were introduced much too quickly to the harshness.
And finally it became too much and he fled the trains and canals. He hid himself in sparkling water, rippled by narwhals and sea-horses, and it was beautiful down there. Like nothing else.
Because, he thought, because no man has ever touched these forests and these rivers. Because, at the present, they can never hope to. Because time stands still and you don't have to watch everything changing. You can stand here and forget that people are so careless. You can forget the people who wait at corners for someone and are never met. You can forget that so many people go though life without any meaning or understanding.
And he knew he was repetitive as ripples on a pond.
"If I had grown up never dreaming that there was something more than what I see, if I had grown taking every thing to be of the earth, and ordinary, still I would know that this is different from anything ever seen before by humans. I have always been sorry that I have not pleased them; but now, when I look at it, I am sorry that I have never pleased myself."
It was rather ironic, he thought, that the people had mistaken her for a narwhal.
"The only person one should ever hope to truly understand in one's life is one's self, and I do not even begin to understand that. I only understand that everything must change, and I have changed, and I am very sorry for that."
And it was so beautiful.
She would like to note that it was largely inspired by The Last Unicorn and Song of the Dodo, but I have read neither of these books and still find it beautiful, so apparently they are not instrumental for your enjoyment. Now. Read it. It's short. You have no excuse. <3 <3 <3
"Unicorn"
There was very little meaning in anything. So many men went through life without a purpose or a single real accomplishment. He was one of them.
There were so many men who took everything for granted, who merely lived their lives, who didn't actually look for anything else, and most of them didn't question why time passed. They didn't question what they were going to do in two or three hundred years. They didn't wonder what the world would be like when there was no free rolling land and no wild animals at all. The many men looked at the earth, thought of the present and lived.
He hadn't been particularly old when he saw his land invaded, cultivated, used. The people who came didn't look at the land and picture the strength of it, the way it fit so easily into what was around it, how it prospered or how, if it was barren, there was method to it. They looked at it and saw railways and progress; civilized houses; a canal.
And he watched what was a land of hills or plains; rivers; or just trickles of water become tracks for a train to glide on; a man-made sea; deeply rutted or paved roads.
So he fought for a while. He fought for his people and his land. Which of the two suffered worse for the men coming? So many people were killed. He reminded himself that they would have been killed anyway. He thought of how they would have been disposed of some way or other, how they would have died from foreign diseases.
He watched his people fall from bullets and explosions, and bad wounds that never healed. There were worse wounds, though. There were the ones that you could see when you glanced around a village, or perhaps an old deserted prison, or the ruins of a city. Proud, strong, pleased people torn to shreds. People who were introduced much too quickly to the harshness.
And finally it became too much and he fled the trains and canals. He hid himself in sparkling water, rippled by narwhals and sea-horses, and it was beautiful down there. Like nothing else.
Because, he thought, because no man has ever touched these forests and these rivers. Because, at the present, they can never hope to. Because time stands still and you don't have to watch everything changing. You can stand here and forget that people are so careless. You can forget the people who wait at corners for someone and are never met. You can forget that so many people go though life without any meaning or understanding.
And he knew he was repetitive as ripples on a pond.
"If I had grown up never dreaming that there was something more than what I see, if I had grown taking every thing to be of the earth, and ordinary, still I would know that this is different from anything ever seen before by humans. I have always been sorry that I have not pleased them; but now, when I look at it, I am sorry that I have never pleased myself."
It was rather ironic, he thought, that the people had mistaken her for a narwhal.
"The only person one should ever hope to truly understand in one's life is one's self, and I do not even begin to understand that. I only understand that everything must change, and I have changed, and I am very sorry for that."
And it was so beautiful.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-25 07:27 pm (UTC)Er. Enough of that. =)
Your prose is terribly elegant, and the matter-of-factness works quite well. By refusing to invest this bit with emotionally charged words, you make the self-reflective paragraphs in quotations all the more powerful. This is objective reasoning. It's a very subtle trick. =)
That's also a very good trick for Nemo. He has a peculiar and difficult-to-capture blend of passion and objectivity, and I rather suppose you've seen it, 'else you wouldn't have written it, eh?
The one thing that confused me, though, was the bit about the narwhal and the irony . . . it's not illogical to say that Nemo knows the myth of the unicorn (if memory serves, it originated somewhere between Turkey and India, but where exactly, I've no clue), but I'm not sure whether you're implying that he actually is a unicorn or not. I'd like to know, if'n you don't mind. +smile+
All in all, though, I was immensely pleased by this fic. You captured well the elements of all of your source material, got in a VERY good characterization of Nemo, and made me think. Well done!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-25 08:25 pm (UTC)...Have I mentioned that Waen disillusions me frequently? She's very glad you reviewed, 'owever.
Re: Narwal
Date: 2007-10-20 03:21 am (UTC)Re: Narwal
Date: 2007-10-20 02:03 pm (UTC)