exhausted film

Tourism, at its best, in a nutshell:

I exhausted my supply of film, and walked back to the memorial trying one last time to feel remorse or guilt, shame or humility, but instead there was the warm sun on my skin, the murmuring of rainwater in the drains, and I could not stop myself from smiling.

Christos Tsiolkas, Dead Europe

I am in the midst of moving out of my Sydney house, the first step on this trip, so I'm sorting books into keep and sell piles. Dead Europe goes in the sell pile -- it belongs to growing class of novels that I stopped reading about 90% of the way through, because I could see where it was going and didn't want to go there. But it did have one post-it sticking out of it, at page 150, pointing to this sentence.

(Photo: Backpackers, hotel, and scaffolding at the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin, Summer 2009)

Comments

[wanderer]

Safe travels. I finished it (fortunately, or unfortunately, a gift). Take care.

[MU]

This particular memorial is an odd mix of the sacred and the playful. The space invites you to run, explore, move about...not contemplate. But I didn't get the full effect of the place until my 3 year old got out of eyesight and an increasingly tense game of hide and seek ensued. A few brief minutes of the fear of losing your child was perhaps the best memorial of the loss, dislocation, and separation that it reflects on.

I still love the space, but now it holds both playful and menacing resonance for me.