The Principal Characteristics of Being According to Aristotle
We suppose that all records of his early years have been lost although
some fragments from that time exist.
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We remember the crowds of quick-stepping soldiers, how gray and grave
they seemed as they awaited the war in our cafes and sitting at the
feet of our statuary or on benches.
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His letters indicate that he spent that year as part of a trenching
battalion assigned to dig tunnels beneath the wire. Often they sent
fire through the tunnels or breached a lower rampart by surprise after
months of digging.
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In later life he often mentioned that his sense of the plain style
developed in reaction to the abundant ribbonry of his wartime decorations.
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It is now known that in February after the long weeks of battle in
the penninsula he was declared unfit for military duty and assigned
to the research service.
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Lucky to get stateside duty he spent two years studying the corpses
of pilots burned in aviation fires to better design flame-retardant
uniforms. It seems clear he had nothing to do with the atrocities of
the Junto Gardens Group.
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He is reported to have developed his famous Theses during the incessant
bombings.
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During the war years a significant aporia opened in his chest.
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Throughout the occupation he helped dig tank traps along the Rhine
as part of a forced-labor crew, securing the safety of his manuscripts
by smuggling and black marketeering.
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Often he lay in bed throughout the day dispiritedly composing poems.
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He attempted to justify his conduct in a series of interviews with
Der Spiegel in 1966.
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There is general agreement that he wrote one great book. It is said
he often appeared disheveled and unshaven, dressed in common workman's
clothes and boots.
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His work is perhaps best remembered as corrective to the enforced hilarity
of the times. A new edition of a recently discovered unpublished novel
is scheduled for this Spring.
by Joe Ahearn