Читать книгу A Forest of Names - Ian Boyden - Страница 9

WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleased with the

sound of my own name? repeating it over and over,

I cannot tell why it affects me so much, when I hear

it from women’s voices, and from men’s voices,

or from my own voice,

I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.

To you, your name also,

Did you think there was nothing but two or three

pronunciations in the sound of your name?

—Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass,” 1860–61

Those children have parents, dreams, and they

could smile, they had a name that belonged to

them. That name will belong to them three years

from now, five years, eighteen or nineteen years

later; it is everything about them which may be

remembered, it is everything that might be evoked.

—Ai Weiwei, March 20, 2009