"Stephen Goldin - The Sword Unswayed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen)

old enough to eat by themselves they are assigned their own private rooms." F'tim seemed uncomfortable
with the subject, so Rabinowitz decided to move on.

"I understand P'tar'houn-Hoc wanted to commission Bian to write a book about the politics of food on
K'tolu'tan," she said. "As his successor, do you plan to continue that commission?"

"I think it would be a worthwhile project, yes."

"Is it a matter of personal interest to you?"
One of F'tim's eyes wiggled on its stalk. "I think you are politely asking whether I share his interest in . .
.public dining. That's not a question I can answer easily. Yes, I am a member of the Food Society, and
yes, I share its goal of removing the stigma of eating in public. But that is where the similarity ends. With
P'tar'houn-Hoc, this eating was an obsession, a fetish, a passion to defy the standards of decent society. I
believe for him the Food Society was a way to justify his perversions, a rationalization of his sickness."

"I see . . .I think. But this isn't the case for you."

"Deborah, since I became old enough to feed myself, no one has ever seen me eat. I never took part in
the Food Society's `dinners.' The very thought fills me with revulsion."

"I'm a little confused. If you don't like public eating, why are you in the Food Society? Was it just to
please your boss?"

"No, though that was an additional benefit. I am . . .I don't know, an idealist, a revolutionary, a futurist. I
see my world becoming a self-imposed outcast of galactic civilization. K'tolu'tan has little contact and less
trade with other worlds, and it is no one's fault but our own. On all other worlds, eating is an everyday
occurrence. People pay it little thought. Only on K'tolu'tan is it a monstrous perversion, and so we shut
ourselves off. We pretend that if we have nothing to do with those other worlds, we don't have to think
about their disgusting habits.

"I believe we are cutting ourselves off from our future. There is much we can learn from other people,
and perhaps a few unique things of our own we can share. We don't have to surrender our own ways,
but we must desensitize ourselves to the ways of others. I want Bian Dinh's book, not as a piece of
personal pornography, but as a manifesto for change."

Rabinowitz laughed out loud. "You and Bian are a match made in heaven. I think you'll enjoy one another
thoroughly."

Then she grew serious again. "Bian mentioned someone who gave a lot of speeches against
P'tar'houn-Hoc, a conservative spokesman. She couldn't remember his name."

"Ah, yes. There is a prominent lecturer named simply K'anal'orb who has led many meetings against the
sin of public mastication."

"A lecturer?"

"I suppose this time I am the victim of poor translation. A social leader without an official position, a
public moralist, a person of supposed rectitude. K'anal'orb draws large crowds to his lectures and spurs
them to emotional frenzies with his appeals to traditional social values. There are those who would walk
through a desert for him. Because our firm has published books about eating, we are one of his special