Ash Garden

The following three quotes are ones that I think were really important to the rest of the novel in "The Ash Garden."

"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Major Thomas Ferebee, United States Air Force, the man who released the first atomic bomb over Japan.’ He stepped out from behind the curtain amid thunderous applause, grinning and walked stiffly across the stage floor and embraced Tanabe Yasaka with long, nervous arms. I saw the pained smile fall away from the reverend’s face and the sweat form on his forehead. He returned the embrace, and as he did so, arms only half raised, half raised, it looked as though he was going to be sick.”

This quote is from one of the most important parts of the book, where Tanabe Yasaka is forced to confront the man that dropped and atomic bomb on Japan on national television. For Yasaka to remain calm while standing face to face with a man that was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths of his people and mass destruction within his country is a ridiculous request, let alone on television in front of an audience.

"This is Heisenberg's principle of insanity. It is the same with particle and neutron fields and it is the same with human beings. Tolerance is necessary to reconcile the man washing his underwear with the crying boy, and the man who destroys the world."

This quote is from Anton thinking back to what the scientist Leo Szilard, who had a large part in creating the atomic bomb, had said to him. Szilard realizes the damage that he has helped to create, and is telling Anton to learn tolerance, even to those who do something as terrible as dropping an atomic bomb.

"When the doctors conferred over him, I was able to see only their legs and shoes, because i could not lift my head. But my ears were among the few things that had not been damaged. I listened to their voices, and soon began to hate how they spoke when they discussed my brother. They said he was a lost case and that he would die. They wondered aloud what kept him alive. Every morning they seemed surprised that he had survived the night. There was no hope for him, they said.

This quote is taken from right after the bomb has been dropped and Emiko is lying in her hospital bed next to her brother. He has been injured far worse then she has, although both have sustained terrible, life-threatening injuries. The reason I chose this quote was because it was probably a similar situation to thousands of Japanese people who were affected by the bomb, and how terrible it must have felt for those who had to lie next to family members while they suffered and (in this case) eventually died.

Questions for Dennis Bock:
1) How many Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors have you ever met (if any)?

2) Did writing this book require a lot of historical research for you?

3) Did you ever meet anyone involved in the making/dropping of the atomic bomb?