It's especially in these moments, when characters are both vulnerable and direct, fragile and fiercely honest, facing up the why of human existence with near-Shakespearean poise that Penny Dreadful gains ground on the spectacular but vapid Game of Thrones.
I would explain the "why" of its existence as part of this universal balance.
I was trying to give voice to the dream they share -- we all in this cause share, this tiny band of human beings who get it in regards to the "why" of our existence, this tiny band that includes the astronauts, cosmonauts, commercial space pilots and all the people in all the agencies and companies engaged in this grand endeavor, and yes, all those buying tickets to go there too.
From the Phaedo, for example, we learn that the so-called "inquiry into nature" consisted in a search for "the causes of each thing; why each thing comes into existence, why it goes out of existence, why it exists" (96 a 6 10).
Kuhn has published over 30 books, including The Mystery of Existence: Why is there Anything At All?; Closer To Truth: Challenging; Current Belief; Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future; How China's Leaders Think; and The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin (the first biography of a living Chinese leader published in China and China's best-selling book in 2005).
It's one of the great mysteries of existence: why are we here?
But why not connect the prose of existence to its deep, strange, cosmic implications?
Through the generations, from culture to culture, religion to religion, Moses to Mohammed, Buddha to Christ, whenever men ask the fundamental question of existence -- "Why are we here?" -- the answer is the same.
But the paper does not explain why the existence of the deal itself needed to remain a secret.
Whether it's All the Light We Cannot See, or The Nightingale, each story plumbs the pillars of existence: how and why the characters think, feel, and behave as they do.
On the other hand, I think if you're someone like Jonathan Franzen, who attempts to write on the grand scale about the large issues of the republic, and of existence, I can understand why somebody noticed this omission.
