Lights glowing in the dark

The recent events in Virginia Tech were so horrific that I find there is nothing that I am able to say about them. It is desperately sad when a person's own inner life gets so messed up that he becomes capable of wreaking such devastation and causing so much pain to so many others.
That there is a despairing darkness in the world cannot be denied any more than it can be understood.

But there is also light.
And while light can take away darkness, darkness cannot actually destroy light- except perhaps the absolute darkness of a 'black hole.'

Anyway, in this often ugly world there is also beauty, and I am enjoying some of it at the moment.
I've started reading Niall Williams' latest novel "Boy In The World" which was one of the birthday gifts I received last week. I haven't read all that much of it yet but I can tell you already that it is beautifully written.

For example, how is this for a description?

"The small timid figure of Father Paul came out; to hide his terror of the bishop, he wore a curve of smile freshly glued.
The bishop was a large man who loved himself completely. His fine black helmet of hair he considered magnificent, his nose straight, his teeth blanched and fearsome, his great girth symbolic. There was more of him than of most people." [Niall Williams: Boy In The World, Harper Collins, 2007 p16]

Isn't that last sentence just delicious??

And what about this later passage describing the scene aboard the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead:

"There were people too of every description, from happy teasing tourists already drinking beer to women with worn-out looks, as if their faces had been used up, and only one expression was left."
[Niall Williams: Boy In The World, Harper Collins, 2007 p75]

Brilliant!

There is a dull kind of truth/reality that can be measured in facts and figures, formulae and statistics: but there is another kind of truth that is much more elusive, because it is infinitely more energetic. It is sometimes (temporarily) captured by the artist, the musician, the poet or the film-maker. Don't ask them to explain their vision and don't try to explain it yourself, just let is settle on your shoulder like a passing butterfly or a fleck of light on rippling water.
God knows... we need those lights in a dark place.