"Jason Gould - The Seven Wonders Of The Modern World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Jason)

stepping over those on the ground, I realised why the island felt so odd.
It was the happiness. I had never been anywhere as happy. In my time as a
journalist I'd been to Hell on Earth, at a number of different places on
the planet, but never a place so simplistically happy. And happiness can
be equally if not more shocking than misery.
Everywhere you wander on Fanaticus people are dancing. If you climb one of
the many trees or step out on to a roof overlooking a clearing, the ground
has the appearance of being alive. The manner of the Fanatican is unusual:
they flop around as if with no sinew or cartilage to keep them upright,
one second standing, the next in the midst of a fit on the sweat-slippery
floor. Sometimes you can hear their bones crack if they land awkwardly.
But it doesn't bother them, they continue with limbs bent at angles the
human anatomy was never designed to achieve. I heard one young man say he
was, 'owned by the beat'; and another that, 'it was in him.' Those who
drop from exhaustion or injury are simply nudged aside by fellow
rhapsodists; and if their hearts give out altogether the bug-eyed, smiling
corpse is tossed into the ocean or left to stiffen where it falls. (I
heard tell that several such bodies were piled inside a structure that had
once been a cafщ, but which was now SUN HOUSE II (SUN HOUSE I being an
ex-doctor's surgery on the opposite side of the island), their flesh in
varying grades of decay. At the door to SUN HOUSE II I was told by a Greek
girl that the reek of the rot served to enhance the mental dislocation and
altered state of the revellers inside. I took her word and didn't venture
over the threshold.)
By the end of my visit I'd observed scenes which in a less enlightened age
may have been answered by a vigorous exorcism. However, I was inspired by
what I witnessed. They literally shine, the people of Fanaticus; shine
like a race of new people unshackled from history. Perhaps they are a step
further into evolution than the rest of us."
Jonathan Booth, Edinburgh Chronicle

Three: The International Museum of War
Nominated by: Mr. T. Nicole, Fairfax Hospital
Mr. Nicole's Winning Phrase: "God made man; and man, not to be outdone,
made war."
Along with his entry, Mr. Nicole has provided his own description of the
International Museum of War, reproduced here:
I must have been about eleven or twelve at the time. I can't describe how
I was then because I still feel the same now. Imagine me as I am today,
for those who know me, but shorter and skinnier and slow at maths.
The build-up to the trip had lasted all summer; in bed at night it was a
physical need in my belly. I read all the books and leaflets; watched
every television programme with the rest of my family, including the live
broadcasts. Like everyone I immersed myself in it. I don't know why. Group
pressure, maybe; or maybe I considered it a fiction, trapped on a page or
screen, black, white: bloodless.
We arrived at the museum shortly after lunch, and were taken to our room
by a porter decked-out in camouflage gear. He conned a tip from my father
and left us to settle in.
That evening, after dinner, we retired to the main hall to watch the grand