Summary

This chapter combines reflections on historical contingency with the first glimpse into the core story of Claudia’s life. The chapter opens with Claudia’s musings on historical accident; for Claudia, Jasper’s father Sasha is a prime example of life as a historical aberration. Sasha should have died in Russia during the First World War rather than surviving into his ungraceful old age, but he survived, and his survival—aberrational though it was—shaped Claudia’s life. Claudia couples her reflections on historical contingency to her thoughts on the ephemeral and the preserving power of language. What remains of the past are words and images, even for those who witnessed the past themselves. Claudia, a war correspondent in Cairo during World War II, finds the most lasting sense of the war she has comes not from her personal experience but from the second-hand, big-picture information...