on sound and distances...

"looking at photographs of streets published by the newspaper that showed crowds blown up by volleys of gunfire into something that looked like the star-studded nucleus of a comet or a cloud of sawdust, one could only decipher the molecular tension of an unknown species, but there was no structure for further reading: it was like a silent image of an explosion so far away that its sound waves hadn't yet reached us."

"having left the noise of paris behind, we now traveled across these noble, pristine forests standing guard against the encroachment of city life like a curtain of initiatory silence, behind which the ear, listening half heartedly, already expected to hear another noise."

julien gracq, king cephetua