The Death of Virgil (pt. 2, The End)

Ok, my quandary-should I continue reading Broch's masterpiece, 'The Death of Virgil' or abandon the book and move on to the next masterpiece I've accumulated either on my desk, bookshelf, or bedside table-is resolved.

But gee what an ornate process! 

The backstory: I, a reader who'd committed to reading superior literature some years ago, feel an even more urgent need to read superior literature at this time, not only to keep my own mind strong but to raise a flag, however small, on behalf of certain beliefs I cherish that are among the finer aspects of western liberal humanism. I can't name them all, but I know they're all still there.

More backstory: I've been living alone for a few days, having the place to myself, walking around the house saying things like, make American great again, and drain the swamp. It's even occured to me that the tragedy of the recent Presidential election is no tragedy at all, that it's fate, our fate as the people we've become, that the people we've become deserve Trump; if it wasn't Trump there would be another just like him to take his place and become our leader. This Presidency will have its own fate and it will be forced to face it, as lousy as it may be, whether it wants to or not, and something better, higher, honest and noble will take its place, someday.

Back to the book, "The Death of Virgil." I'm giving it up, it's not the book I need at this time. I place the bookmark at page 121, having read to the bottom of the page where Broch has written in the intermittent poetry he so often substitutes for prose, lines about human life, "revealing beauty for what it was, as the infinite in the realm of the finite."

But then, but then, after all the unnecessary torment of over-thinking, I can't quite close this book, there's something magical about it that feels necessary at this time, as overwritten, overwrought, so pretentiously German as it is; there's some sort of real belief in and trust of endlessness that I can't put into words.