conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled The Pacific and Other Stories about Entertainment, Weekly, Editor&rsquo;s with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: "the author reaffirms his place as our most elegant moralist... &#91;His&#93; range is staggering." &#151; Entertainment Weekly , Editor&rsquo;s Choice
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Pacific and Other Stories
  I DIDN'T GO TO VENICE of my own accord. I was sent there, forced to go, by that... that woman, she who has worshippers throughout the world, she who, despite a corrupt and failing body, limitless greed, and the personality of a broom, has—still, after all these years—the voice of an angel. It isn't surprising that she has power over me. Why shouldn't she? Even after a big meal, and I mean a big meal, she can walk onto a floodlit stage, stare into darkness and blinding glare, and then, with inimitable self-possession, make thousands weep. That all her gifts have been so concentrated is a miracle, and though she has no talent or virtue but this, it's more than enough.
  Naturally, I didn't want to stay in such a place for the rest of my life, and I believed that unless I did something impulsive and courageous, and unless I had a great deal of luck, I would. So I waited for my luck, and it came one day as I was walking home, not five minutes from the factory, in front of an industrial laundry. The doors were open, and, inside, one of the laundresses was lifting heavy wet sheets onto a cable that took them into a dryer. As she clipped them to the line, she sang. But she was singing, and the singing, as she has proved many times since, was worthy of La Scala.
  Not wanting to be killed, I was going to leave right then, but then she said, "Yes, he's in New Zealand, at the embassy, for two years. It has something to do with ostriches, I think. When he gets back, they'll be married."
  I laughed artificially. "I have an appointment," I said, "for a contract signing with Lucida Lamorella. I'll be here tomorrow. Tell her." All the while she was singing so beautifully that I could see why people fell in love with her even if I did not, because I could tell from a distance and despite a voice that one could love forever that she was—how shall I say it—spiritually blank. I don't know how I was able to tell. Certain things are more or less self-evident.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Working, Working, raised.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Pacific and Other Stories
  I DIDN'T GO TO VENICE of my own accord. I was sent there, forced to go, by that... that woman, she who has worshippers throughout the world, she who, despite a corrupt and failing body, limitless greed, and the personality of a broom, has—still, after all these years—the voice of an angel. It isn't surprising that she has power over me. Why shouldn't she? Even after a big meal, and I mean a big meal, she can walk onto a floodlit stage, stare into darkness and blinding glare, and then, with inimitable self-possession, make thousands weep. That all her gifts have been so concentrated is a miracle, and though she has no talent or virtue but this, it's more than enough. 
  Naturally, I didn't want to stay in such a place for the rest of my life, and I believed that unless I did something impulsive and courageous, and unless I had a great deal of luck, I would. So I waited for my luck, and it came one day as I was walking home, not five minutes from the factory, in front of an industrial laundry. The doors were open, and, inside, one of the laundresses was lifting heavy wet sheets onto a cable that took them into a dryer. As she clipped them to the line, she sang. Working with arms raised is so difficult that most people would not have been able even to talk. But she was singing, and the singing, as she has proved many times since, was worthy of La Scala. 
  Not wanting to be killed, I was going to leave right then, but then she said, "Yes, he's in New Zealand, at the embassy, for two years. It has something to do with ostriches, I think. When he gets back, they'll be married. "
  I laughed artificially. "I have an appointment," I said, "for a contract signing with Lucida Lamorella. I'll be here tomorrow. Tell her. " All the while she was singing so beautifully that I could see why people fell in love with her even if I did not, because I could tell from a distance and despite a voice that one could love forever that she was—how shall I say it—spiritually blank. I don't know how I was able to tell. Certain things are more or less self-evident.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: That was not quite true. He had begun to think about the game. For example, he liked very much that the ball was an object descending from heaven, and he thought of it, therefore, not as an object to be captured for the glory of the captor but as a gracious gift that brought with it in train a bit of the loveliness of the sky.
  FOR THE SEMINAR, the Yankees went to their secret practice field at Lake Honkus, near Mohonk, in the Shawangunks. The Yankees had bought a secluded estate and set up a baseball field on what had been a cow pasture, where they could practice in secret their surprise plays and coded signals. The lodge where they stayed was filled with wrought iron, Indian blankets, and buffalo heads. In fact, in Roger's room, he and a moose had a staring contest for at least an hour.
  The next morning, Roger and the Yankees put away a huge breakfast, during which Roger discovered that the maple syrup the Yankees used on their pancakes was kosher, and made an interesting sauce for pickled herring. Then they went outside and sat on benches facing a portable blackboard. The weather was wonderfully cool and clear at Lake Honkus. Stengel brought Roger up to the front, stood him next to the blackboard, gave him a piece of chalk, and said, "Kid, we're totally secure."
  Roger looked at the Yankees, who looked at him expectantly. What could he possibly say that would enable them to hit a ball out of the park or jump twenty feet in the air?
  Time passed. The Yankees stared at Roger. More time passed. Then Roger said, "Both illustrate the mechanism of the world."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last four paragraphs? End with the sentence ' The timing of her welds, the blinking of the arc, the light touch that held two parts together and was then withdrawn, the patience and the quickness, the generation of blinding flares and small pencil-shots of smoke: these acts, qualities, and their progress, like the repetitions in the hymns that the women sang on the line, made a kind of quiet thunder that rolled through all things, and that, in Paulette's deepest wishes, shot across the Pacific in performance of a miracle she dared not even name—though that miracle was not to be hers.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: She often spoke to him under her breath, informing him, as if he could hear her, of everything she thought and did—of the fact that she was turning off the flame under the kettle, of the sunrise and its golden-red light flooding against the pines, of how the ocean looked when it was joyously misbehaving.
  THESE WERE THE THINGS she could do, the powers to which she was limited, in the town on the Pacific that was probably the last place in the world for a factory or the working of transcendent miracles too difficult to explain or name. But she felt that somehow her devotion and her sharp attention would have repercussions, that, just as in a concert hall, where music could only truly rise within the hearts of its listeners, she could forge a connection over the thin air. When a good wave rolled against the rocks of the cove, it sent up rockets of foam that hung in the sun, motionlessly and—if one could look at them hard enough to make them stand still—forever. To make them a target, to sight them with concentration as absolute as a burning weld, to draw a bead, to hold them in place with the eye, was to change the world.
  The factory was her place for this, for precision, devotion, and concentration. Here the repercussions might begin. Here, in the darkness, the light that was so white it was almost blue—sapphire-colored—flashed continually, like muzzle bursts, and steel was set to steel as if swords were being made. Here she could push herself, drive herself, and work until she could hardly stand—all for him.
  As the battle for Tarawa became more and more difficult, and men fell, Paulette doubled and redoubled her efforts. Every weld was true. She built the instruments with the disciplined ferocity that comes only from love. For the rhythm of the work seemed to signify something far greater than the work itself. The timing of her welds, the blinking of the arc, the light touch that held two parts together and was then withdrawn, the patience and the quickness, the generation of blinding flares and small pencil-shots of smoke: these acts, qualities, and their progress, like the repetitions in the hymns that the women sang on the line, made a kind of quiet thunder that rolled through all things, and that, in Paulette's deepest wishes, shot across the Pacific in performance of a miracle she dared not even name—though that miracle was not to be hers.