Sr. elpolvo - Correction, expansion, explanation:
I (mis)quoted from memory; the correct, contextual quotation is:
Little Newt stirred.
While still half-snoozing, he put his black, painty hands to his mouth and chin, leaving black smears there. He rubbed his eyes and made black smears around them, too.
"Hello," he said to me, sleepily.
"Hello," I said. "I like your painting."
"You see what it is?"
"I suppose it means something different to everyone who sees it."
"It's a cat's cradle."
"Aha," I said. "Very good. The scratches are string. Right?"
"One of the oldest games there is, cat's cradle. Even the Eskimos know it."
"You don't say."
"For maybe a hundred thousand years or more, grown-ups have been waving tangles of string in their children's faces."
"Um."
Newt remained curled in the chair. He held out his painty hands as though a cat's cradle were strung between them. "No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's..."
"And?"
"No damn cat, and no damn cradle."
In the end, neither the painting nor the cat's cradle have much to do with the story. Like much of KV's work, the book is an illustration of the nonsensical nature of the human existence.
We as individuals can do whatever we like, but it is foolish to think that our individual actions are going to be noticed by, let alone affect, the Cosmos, the Earth, or even the human race. On the other hand, we as individuals will most assuredly be affected by, and notice, powers greater than ourselves, and if we don't recognize their existence, we will be reminded in weird and wonderful ways.
Or something like that. Far be it from me to definitively interpret any author's work.
Doug |
