Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane

I'm reading this great novel about an "ambiguous adventure" of an African boy from his country Diallobe' to a foreign school and later to Paris. There are a lot of great passages, but this one in particular reminds me a little bit of Snow. I'm sure if we roleplay the dialogue like we did in class and get asked by Andy every sentence or two "what do you mean by that," :-))) we would see so many more layers in each sentence... but even at the surface of my first encounter, I love the talk about the end of the world, about the anguish, about "a little truth each day"...

(The dialogue is between a man from Diallobe and a Frenchman at the time of sunset and started by the latter. The former is called the knight here because he appeared to have "the air of a knight of the Middle Ages" to the Frenchman and his son...)

"Does this twilight not trouble you? Myself, I am upset by it. At this moment it seems to me that we are closer to the end of the world than we are to nightfall."
The knight smiled.
"Reassure yourself. I predict for you a peaceful night."
"You do not believe in the end of the world?"
"On the contrary, I even hope for it, firmly."
"That is just what I was thinking. Here everyone believes in the end of the world, from the most simple-minded peasant to the man of great cultivation. Why? I have been asking myself; and only today, with this twilight, I have begun to understand."
The knight looked attentively at Paul.
"Let me ask you a question in my turn: you truly do not believe in the end of the world?"
"No, obviously. The world will not come to an end - at least not to the end that is expected here. That a catastrophe might destroy our planet - of that I do not speak."
"Our most simple-minded peasant does not believe in such an end as that, episodic and accidental. His universe does not admit of accident. In spite of appearances, his concept is more reassuring than yours."
"That may well be. Unfortunately for us, it is my universe which is true. The earth is not flat. It has no steep slopes which give upon the abyss. The sun is not a candelabrum set upon a blue porcelain dais. The universe which science has revealed to the West is less immediately human, but confess that it is more solid."
"Your science has revealed to you a round and perfect world, in infinite movement," said the knight. "It has reconquered that world from chaos. But I believe that in so doing it has laid you open to despair."
"Not at all. It has liberated us from fears - childish and absurd fears."
"Absurd? What is absurd is the world which does not end. When will one know the truth - all the truth? As for us, we still believe in the coming of truth. We hope for it."
Then that is it, Paul Lacroix thought. The truth which they do not now possess, which they are incapable of conquering, they hope for in the end. It is so in the case of justice, also. All they want and do not have - instead of trying to conquer it, they await it at the end...
He did not express this thought. He merely said:
"As for us, we conquer a little more of truth each day, thanks to science. We do not wait..."
I was sure that he would not have understood, thought the knight. They are so fascinated by the returns they get from the implement that they have lost sight of the infinite immensity of the workyard. They do not see that the truth which they discover each day is each day more contracted. A little truth each day- to be sure, that must be, that is necessary. But the Truth? To have this, must one renounce that?
Like Paul Lacroix, he did not express this thought aloud. He said, instead:
"I believe that you understand very well what I want to say to you. I do not contest the quality of the truth which science discloses. But it is a partial truth; and insofar as there will be a future, all truth will be partial. Truth takes its place at the end of history. But I see that we are setting out on the deceptive road of metaphysics."
"Why do you say 'deceptive'?"
"'To every word one can oppose another' - is that not what one of your ancient philosphers has said? Tell me frankly if this is not still your conviction today."
"No. And if you please, let us keep away from metaphysics. I should like to know your world."
"You know it already. Our world is that which believes in the end of the world: which at the same time hopes for it and fears it. Just now, I rejoiced greatly when it seemed to me that ou were in anguish there in front of the window. See, I was saying to myself, he has a foreboding of the end..."
"No, it was not anguish, truly. It did not go so far as that."
" Then from the bottom of my heart I wish for you to rediscover the feeling of anguish in the face of the dying sun. I ardently wish that for the West. When the sun dies, no scientific certainty should keep us from weeping for it, no rational evidence should keep us from asking that it be reborn. You are slowly dying under the weight of evidence. I wish you that anguish - like a resurrection."
"To what shall we be born?"
"To a more profound truth. Evidence is a quality of the surface. Your science is the triumph of evidence, a proliferation of the surface. It makes you the masters of the external, but at the same time it exiles you there, more and more."