rogernoblog

I woke up in the middle of the night and turned on the television. I saw two old men - one deranged, the other demented.  Maybe I didn't wake up. Maybe it was just a nightmare. I went back to sleep again. 

This is an extract from 'Vilna' by Moyshe Kulbak, a Jewish writer of Yiddish

In time the shock will fade, but the memory of the bestiality and brutality will remain. No Palestinian and no Israeli should forget that horror – in particular the images of innocent children and babies being dragged into dark tunnels, the images of innocent children and babies being dragged out of crumbling hospital wards. But no Palestinian and no Israeli should use these memories to perpetuate the cycle of violence. 

Writing a novel, even one that's never going to be published, has strange results on the cognitive functioning. Slowly one starts inhabiting two worlds, and as the writing progresses the second world begins to take over.