물로부터 만물이 나온다’는 주장은 전혀 과학적이지 않...

물로부터 만물이 나온다’는 주장은 전혀 과학적이지 않습니다.

이 주장은 철학적입니다. 철학적이라는 건 도저히 설명할 수 없는 세상 전체라는 대상을 어떻게든 이성적으로 설명하려 한다는 것을 말합니다. - <쓸모 있는 사고를 위한 최소한의 철학>, 이충녕 - 밀리의 서재
https://www.millie.co.kr/v3/bookDetail/124f3f693060420b - P15

눈에 보이는 물이라는 물질을 통해 세상 전체를 설명하려 했습니다. 세상의 가장 깊은 근원에는 물이 있고, 물이 변화해 모든 것들이 만들어진다고 말이죠. 지금 우리의 입장에서 물이 진짜로 세상의 근원인지 아닌지는 중요하지 않습니다. 그보다 탈레스가 물이라는 구체적 대상을 통해 세상 전체를 종합적으로 설명하려고 했다는 게 철학의 역사에서 중요한 지점입니다. - <쓸모 있는 사고를 위한 최소한의 철학>, 이충녕 - 밀리의 서재
https://www.millie.co.kr/v3/bookDetail/124f3f693060420b - P15

˝Of unrequited love,˝ her gra...

"Of unrequited love," her grandmother explained. "He sang and scolded all night for his scolder hen and then along came another and stole her away, so he put his head under the water and floated away." - P25

"It’s not necessary," Grandmother said. "The tide will come in and he’ll bury himself. Seabirds are supposed to be buried at sea, like sailors." - P26

It was important for her not to stand up too quickly, so she had time to watch the blade of grass just as the down left its hold and was borne away in a light morning breeze. It was carried out of her field of vision, and when she got on her feet the landscape had grown smaller. - P27

"I saw a feather," she said. "A piece of scolder down." "What scolder?" Sophia said, for she had forgotten the bird that died of love. - P28

ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE ISLAND,...

ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE ISLAND, beyond the bare rock, there was a stand of dead forest. It lay right in the path of the wind and for many hundreds of years had tried to grow directly into the teeth of every storm, and had thus acquired an appearance all its own. From a passing boat it was obvious that each tree was stretching away from the wind; they crouched and twisted, and many of them crept. Eventually the trunks broke or rotted and then sank, the dead trees supporting or crushing those still green at the top. All together they formed a tangled mass of stubborn resignation. The ground was shiny with brown needles, except where the spruces had decided to crawl instead of stand, their greenery luxuriating in a kind of frenzy, damp and glossy as if in a jungle. - P20

This forest was called "the magic forest". It had shaped itself with slow and laborious care, and the balance between survival and extinction was so delicate that even the smallest change was unthinkable. - P20

What they don’t know – and it cannot be repeated too often – is that moss is terribly frail. Step on it once and it rises the next time it rains. The second time, it doesn’t rise back up. And the third time you step on moss, it dies. Eider ducks are the same way – the third time you frighten them up from their nests, they never come back. Sometime in July the moss would adorn itself with a kind of long, light grass. - P21

Grandmother sat in the magic forest and carved outlandish animals. She cut them from branches and driftwood and gave them paws and faces, but she only hinted at what they looked like and never made them too distinct. They retained their wooden souls, and the curve of their backs and legs had the enigmatic shape of growth itself and remained a part of the decaying forest. Sometimes she cut them directly out of a stump or the trunk of a tree. - P21

Gathering is peculiar, because you see nothing but what you’re looking for. If you’re picking raspberries, you see only what’s red, and if you’re looking for bones you see only the white. No matter where you go, the only thing you see is bones. - P22

One morning Sophia found a perfect skull of some large animal – found it all by herself. Grandmother thought it was a seal skull. They hid it in a basket and waited all day until evening. The sunset was in different shades of red, and the light flooded in over the whole island so that even the ground turned scarlet. They put the skull in the magic forest, and it lay on the ground and gleamed with all its teeth. - P22

And so the wooden animals were allowed to vanish into their forest. The arabesques sank into the ground and turned green with moss, and the trees slipped deeper and deeper into each other’s arms as time went by. Grandmother often went to the magic forest when the sun went down. But in the daytime she sat on the veranda steps and made boats of bark. - P23

It’s a funny thing about bogs. You can fill them with rocks and sand and old logs and make a little fenced-in yard on top with a woodpile and a chopping block – but bogs go right on behaving like bogs. Early in the spring they breathe ice and make their own mist, in remembrance of the time when they had black water and their own sedge blossoming untouched. - P24

She heard the cry of the long-tailed ducks. They are called scolders, because their cry is a steady, chiding chatter, farther and farther away, farther and farther out. People rarely see them. They are as secretive as corncrakes. But a corncrake hides in a meadow all alone, while the long-tails are out beyond the farthest islands in enormous wedding flocks, singing all through the spring night. - P24

IT WAS AN EARLY, VERY WARM MO...

IT WAS AN EARLY, VERY WARM MORNING IN JULY, and it had rained during the night. The bare granite steamed, the moss and crevices were drenched with moisture, and all the colours everywhere had deepened. Below the veranda, the vegetation in the morning shade was like a rainforest of lush, evil leaves and flowers, which she had to be careful not to break as she searched. She held one hand in front of her mouth and was constantly afraid of losing her balance. - P15

The first weariness came closer. When we get home, she thought, when we get back I think I’ll take a little nap. And I must remember to tell him this child is still afraid of deep water. - P17

"When are you going to  die?" the child asked. And Grandmother answered, "Soon. But that is not the least concern of yours." - P6

It is a clear, warm day on the Pellinge peninsula, when I stand on the jetty waiting for the real-life Sophia to steer me across to the island in her boat. I feel incredibly privileged, invited to enter the world that inspired this book, and with great anticipation I step aboard. The sea looks calm when we set off but the wind is against us, the water rough, and the boat slams down from the tip of each wave, soaking us with spray. Sophia, fully grown now, has returned every summer of her life to this island, and as one would expect shows not the slightest sign of fear. "Does it ever capsize?" I want to ask but there’s only one answer worth hearing so I stay quiet. - P7

I examine the different coloured mosses, heeding Grandmother’s warning that: "Only farmers and summer guests walk on the moss… The second time it doesn’t rise back up. And the third time you step on moss, it dies. Eider ducks are the same way – the third time you frighten them up from their nests, they never come back." - P10

ONE TIME IN APRIL THERE WAS A FULL MOON, and the sea was covered with ice. Sophia woke up and remembered that they had come back to the island and that she had a bed to herself because her mother was dead. The fire was still burning in the stove, and the flames flickered on the ceiling, where the boots were hung up to dry. She climbed down to the floor, which was very cold, and looked out through the window. - P18

The ice was black, and in the middle of the ice she saw the open stove door and the fire – in fact she saw two stove doors, very close together. In the second window, the two fires were burning underground, and through the third window she saw a double reflection of the whole room, trunks and chests and boxes with gaping lids. They were filled with moss and snow and dry grass, all of them open, with bottoms of coal-black shadow. - P18

She lay down in her bed and looked at the fire dancing on the ceiling, and all the time the island seemed to be coming closer and closer to the house. They were sleeping by a meadow near the shore, with patches of snow on the covers, and under them the ice darkened and began to glide. A channel opened very slowly in the floor, and all their luggage floated out in the river of moonlight. All the suitcases were open and full of darkness and moss, and none of them ever came back. - P18

Sophia rolled up in the quilt. She let the whole island float out on the ice and on to the horizon. Just before she fell asleep, her father got up and put more wood in the stove. - P19

[오늘의 한문장] 토막 난 우주를 안고서

한국전쟁 동안우리는 정의하기 어려운 모호한 개념이었다. 그것은 북한 사람과 남한 사람 모두를 의미할 수도 있었고, 공산주의자냐 자본주의자냐는 중요하지 않았다. 매일 밤 나는 체온을 유지하고 외로움을 견뎌내기 위해, 낯선 사람, 창백한 어둠 속에서 내 옆에 누워 있는 또 다른 인간과우리를 이루려 했다. 처음에는 몸을 웅크리고 팔뚝과 정강이를 옆 사람의 등에 살포시 대곤 했다. 그리고 상대가 움찔하지 않으면, 천천히 두 손으로 그의 어깨를 감싸며 따뜻한 벽 같은 그의 등에 배를 댔다. 놀랍게도 대부분의 사람들은 저항하지 않았다.

-알라딘 eBook <이름 없는 여자의 여덟 가지 인생> (이미리내 지음, 정해영 옮김) 중에서 - P67