I found Faxe's and Genly's conversation on the bottom of page 71 really interesting.
"The unknown," said faxe's soft voice in the forest "the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thoght. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. No Handdara, no Yomesh, no hearthgods, nothing. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion... Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable-- the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?"
"That we shall die."
"Yes. There is really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer... The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next."
I think that Faxe brings up a really good point here. The fact that we are all going to die some day is the only thing that we are absolutely sure of. I am a little confused, however, with what he is trying to say. Since he is a foreteller, is he saying that when he tells the future that he could be wrong.
This conversation reminds me of Beadwoman. Just like in Beadwoman, Faxe is basically saying that people shouldn't know what is going to happen to them in the future, because it's the finding out that makes life worthwhile.
Something I noticed about this chapter is its motif of ignorance. We see it first when Genly tells Goss that he is exceedingly ingorant. Next ignorance comes up when Genly is reflecting about the Old Men of the Handara. Then ignorant is used to describe the matter of which the foretellers must be to the question asked. Finally we see the motif repeated in the conversation between Faxe and Genly. I think that in thier culture they value ignorance and it is not a bad thing to be ignorant. (Ingorance is Bliss) This is different from our culture in that people tend to view ignorance as a bad thing.
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