Here are some quotations that either inspired M in the Abstract or are evocative of the book.
“The danger, when not seen, has the imperfect vagueness of human thought.”
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
- This was going to be the epigram for M but I was talked out of it. It conveys, in a conceptual way, one of the ideas I was trying to get across in the book, but it does not reflect the work as a whole. I still like it, though. I think it addresses a very human tendency to look for sentience in all things.
“A water-clerk need not pass an examination in anything under the sun, but he must have Ability in the abstract and demonstrate it practically.”
From Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
- This is where I got the “In the Abstract” portion of the title from
- It’s not always enough to be good at this thing or that thing, some positions (and I dare say our day-to-day lives) require competency in many areas at once. This is something that Mary is far from achieving, but is inching closer to in the end.
“One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly spreading coils and bellyings of the blackness advancing headlong, towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable blackness, a strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking and writhing on the ground, and the swift broadening out of the opaque cone of smoke. And then, night and extinction – nothing but a silent mass of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead.”
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
- An intricate description of the vapourous, lethal weapon employed by the Martians to eradicate humans in Wells’ sci-fi classic. It could also describe a nightmare version of Mary’s shadows.
- A humourous side-note: when I was transcribing this passage from my copy, I created this typo: “…the gnus suddenly abandoned…” I’d love to imagine this scene: Rural England, the Martians attacking, chaos all around, herds of gnus -unchained and unhinged – running like mad.