May
15
past&present
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald, novelist (1896-1940)
Quoted from memory, though I always want to put "ceaselessly" before "borne."
This quotation is one of the most famous lines in literature, the one that ends "The Great Gatsby," chosen in this instance since a new film adaptation of this novel is filling film screens at the moment. But it somehow speaks to archives because it speaks to the inevitability of the past and how we cannot escape it. The inevitable and inescapable might sometimes be negative, but they can also work to be positive, which is how I see things in the case of archives.
--F. Scott Fitzgerald, novelist (1896-1940)
Quoted from memory, though I always want to put "ceaselessly" before "borne."
This quotation is one of the most famous lines in literature, the one that ends "The Great Gatsby," chosen in this instance since a new film adaptation of this novel is filling film screens at the moment. But it somehow speaks to archives because it speaks to the inevitability of the past and how we cannot escape it. The inevitable and inescapable might sometimes be negative, but they can also work to be positive, which is how I see things in the case of archives.
