The assault

From the excellent (I just finished it, so I suppose I should reflect before judging it so) 1985 Dutch novel, The Assault, by Henry Mulisch:

And then . . . and then . . . and then . . . Time passes. "That, at least, is behind us," we say, "but what still lies ahead?" The way we word it, it's as if our backs were turned to the past as we look toward the future; and that is, in fact, how we actually think of it: the future in front, the past behind. To dynamic personalities, the present is a ship that drives its bow through the rough seas of the future. To more passive ones, it is rather like a raft drifting along with the tide. There is, of course, something wrong with both these images, for if time is movement, then it must be moving through another kind of time, and the secondary time through yet another; and thus time is endlessly multiplied. This is the kind of concept that does not please philosophers, but then, inventions of the heart have little to do with those of the intellect.

Now I'm taking my aching, over-exercised (only to me is it over-exercised, believe me) self to a reading in that other city. I shall report back if interest warrants.