Weeping Child

Began with Milosz in his essay on Lev Shestov. His discussion of Ivan Karamazov--"Imagine that it is you yourself who are erecting the edifice of human destiny with the aim of making men happy in the end, of giving them peace and contentment at last..." Would this indeed be worth more than the tears of a single child?

But here there's something more of the Caribbean--or even Africa--as the subject of those tears. And a history that was anything but hypothetical. Edward P. Jones, in his novel, The Known World. An invented county in Virginia, from just before the Civil War, slaves and slave-holders both of African descent. Scene at the end--the madwoman, who reappears as author of a mural wall in far-off Washington--a perfect rendition in great detail of the very estate she's managed to escape...