Nick Cave

"But in the ordinary run of affairs how many people go out of their way to pass even five or ten minutes in a good deep cave completely cut off from the outside world and take the opportunity to hear themselves speak and really listen to themselves? It can come to seem strange that people pay good money to entertain or instruct themselves with drugs or sex or universities or even submit themselves to psychiatric counselling when they could just as well spend a few free minutes in the silence of an impressively tucked-away cave and experience this ordinary auditory apocalypse, discover themselves as never before."

Royle, Nicholas. Quilt. (Reading: Cox & Wyman Ltd, 2010), pp.30



Thanks Nick. I kind of wish you'd suggested that before I signed up to your MA. Although really, universities should function as caves to hold conversations in. It is interesting seeing how in this respect a cave could be seen as something enlightening whereas in other texts it is used as something quite the opposite (The Republic). There's an exciting ambivalence at play here. Perhaps I could write my dissertation on caves.