Friday, December 19, 2014

GPOY, oh dear

He held the kind of passion for books and learning that only comes when one has pursued an education on one’s very own — but it was a passion that, because its origins were both private and virtuous, tended toward piety and scorn. His temperament was deeply nostalgic, not for his own past, but for past ages; he was cynical of the present, fearful of the future, and profoundly regretful of the world’s decay.

- Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries