Andrew Conlon > Recent Status Updates

"They will live a really long time, these men of the South Pacific. They had an American quality. They, like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until their Guadalcanal sounds distant on the ear like Shiloh and Valley Forge."

This simultaneously transports me to some unknown point beneath the Mediterranean sun, and to all of the memories associated with having read the book before. I remember the first time in Massachusetts, and in Virginia, and I know I will remember this time too. O'Brian has a meta-effect which cements memories. I "recall" Mahon as well as I recall the summer of 2008, and the spring of 2013. A blessing, truly a gift.