The short reason for choosing these stories is that they are among the most beautiful
             stories which I have ever read, and both deal with what I take to be essential and pressing
             The first is a kind of parable about a mythical society which exceeds all utopias in
             brilliance and glory. There is, however, a clear, specific and horrible cost for the
             unsurpassed joy of its people. One is invited to consider whether the cost is appropriate,
             if not, why not, and how our own lives might be analogous. Insofar as our lives do mirror those of the people in the story, we are confronted with the choice of whether to walk away.
             The second story is of the intertwining of the personal and the public, of commitment to others and commitment to self. It is set the day before a revolution and focuses not on the revolution, but on the now old woman who more than anyone else is responsible for it. This is the culmination of all that she has been as a public figure, as a person devoted to a cause, as a person defined by her occupation. This is also the day she is going to die, and one in which she seeks to reconcile herself to a long-dead lover, to her failing body, to the fact that she never learned the name of a certain flower she loves. This story raises questions of who we are, what we care about, how a commitment to a cause can give meaning to a life, as well as how the minutiae of life can do the same.
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