The Art of Being Found Out
Colm Tóibín: The need to be revealed, 20 March 2008
“... Soldier, the narrator contemplates the words of passion used by Edward Ashburnham to a young girl, Nancy, and his need to speak them, and what happened once these words were spoken aloud: ‘It was as if his passion for her hadn’t existed; as if the very words that he spoke, without knowing that he spoke them, created the passion as they went along. Before ... ”