It is not history. But I am beginning to wonder strongly what is the nature of history. Is it only memory in decent sentences, and if so, how reliable is it? I would suggest, not very. And that therefore most truth and fact offered by these syntactical means is treacherous and unreliable. And yet I recognise that we live our lives, and even keep our sanity, by the lights of this treachery and this unreliability, just as we build our love of country on these paper worlds of misapprehension and untruth. Perhaps this is our nature, and perhaps unaccountably it is part of our glory as a creature, that we can build our best and most permanent buildings on foundations of utter dust.

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About Sebastian Barry

Sebastian Barry was Irish novelist, playwright and poet. Sebastian Barry is an Irish novelist, playwright and poet. He was named Laureate for Irish Fiction, 2018–2021. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • History — Lessons from the past and the arc of human civilisation
  • Truth — Meditations on honesty, authenticity, and the search for truth

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