'War is bombing an already disused arsenal, missing it and killing a few old women. War is lying in a stable with a gangrenous leg. War is drinking hot water in a barn and worrying about one's wife. War is a handful of lost and terrified men in the mountains, shooting at something moving in the undergrowth. War is waiting for days with nothing to do, shouting down a dead telephone, going without sleep and sex and a wash. War is untidy, inefficient, obscene, and largely a matter of chance. '
W.D. Auden in een radiopraatje (1939) voor de BBC waarvan een fragment is opgenomen in Verlyn Klinkenborgs Several short sentences about writing (2013 [2012];p.157).
De integrale causerie vind je: hier. Prima proza.
