Saturday
Ian McEwan, Alfred A. Knopf
Canada, 2005
... Opinions are a roll of the dice; by definition, none of the people
millling around Warren Street tube station happens to have been
tortured by the regime, or knows and loves people who have, or even
knows much about the place at all. It's likely most of them barely
registered the massacres in Kurdish Iraq, or in the Shi'ite south, and
now they find they care with a passion for Iraqi lives. They have good
reasons for their views, among which are concerns for their own safety.
Al-Qaeda, it's said, which loathes both godless Sadam and the Shi'ite
opposition, will be provoked by an attack on Iraq into revenge on the
soft cities of the West. Self interest is a decent enough cause, but
Perowne can't feel, as the marchers themselves probably can, that they
have an exclusive hold on moral discernment.
p.73
It doesn't sound plausible. But in gerneral, the human disposition is
to believe. And when proved wrong, shift ground. Or have faith, and go
on believing. Over time, down through the generations, this may have
been most efficent: just in case believe. All day, Perowne himself has
suspected the story was not all it seemed, and now Theo is feeding this
longing to fear the worst. On the other hand, if the rumours about
the plane come from the Internet, the chances of their inaccuracy are
increased.
p. 151