Euphoria

by Lily King

I was raised on science as other people are raised on God, or gods, or the crocodile.

‘And your mother is of the same persuasion?’ ‘Stalin to his Lenin. I am

It had been during my first month and I’d been sitting with the women—I was often put with the women in large gatherings, along with the children and the mentally ill.

He is making himself perfectly well understood and people are much less apt to laugh at him as he is a man and taller than all of them and the dispenser of most of the salt & matches & cigarettes.

I shut my eyes and Nell disappeared, replaced by Fen who sat so much closer, the fan nearly swatting me, the wet cloths runny, water dripping in my ears.

Bankson said he once tried to explain the war and the 18 million dead to Teket, who could not comprehend it, the number alone, let alone that many killed in one conflict. B said they never found the whole of his brother’s body in Belgium. He said surely it is more civilized to kill one man every few months, hold up his head for all to behold, say his name, and return home for a feast than to slaughter nameless millions.

When only one person is the expert on a particular people, do we learn more about the people or the anthropologist when we read the analysis?