The democratic revolution of aspiration De Tocqueville witnessed in the early 19th century swept across the world, sparking longings for wealth, status and power in the most unpromising circumstances.
But does some spark of longing for a more beautiful, intact world survive?
For L.A.'s Iranian American community, the game will spark a longing for the motherland but serve as a reminder of a regime they've come to loathe.
Finally, the "work" of Lord Elgin on the Parthenon at the beginning of the 19th century had sparked further longing for Greece: it now seemed possible to build vast collections of ancient art in Western Europe.
In this début novel, Greer pinpoints the "tiny hidden madnesses in ordinary people" with unerring accuracy, and, in prose littered with sparks, makes palpable the longing for the celestial.
Whether the chants of 2011 still hold true today, "بلا ماهر وبلا بشار وهالعصابة الأسدية سوريا بدها حرية" [Neither Maher nor Bashar nor the Assad mafia, Syria wants freedom] or whether that spark of hope and that longing for democratic reform died and was buried along with the hundreds of thousands of Syrians under the rubble of regime barrel bombs and Russian cluster munitions.
Those of us who are passionate about the foods of Szechuan, Hunan, Yunnan, Shanghai, Suzhou, Fukien, Canton and Beijing — and who are old enough — can't help longing for the palate-sparking wonders revealed to us from the mid-'60s through the '70s, as expensive, stylish Chinese restaurants opened to feature what were billed as northern foods.
A world longing for light again.
Longing for retribution is longing for retribution.
There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years.
