In the Swiss Alps are countless airstrips, concealed hangers, mined bridges and clear-cut fields of fire. It is often the case, McPhee informs us, that the engineer who creates a strategic structure will then be given the task of planning its destruction. The Alps are not the barrier to invasion that they once were—the Swiss Army must supply the balance now, adapting to newer technologies.
But the Alps are still formidable, particularly when supplied, valley and town, canton and city, with the ready defense of the Swiss Army.
Crystallizing and recrystallizing, the ice among the peaks collects and compacts itself into the Grosser Aletsch-gletscher, the supreme glacier of Europe, with avenues of ice coming in from six or eight directions to conjoin in ... Konkordiaplatz, La Place de la Concorde Suisse... This place that will never need defending represents what the Swiss defend.
This book assembles tiny elements, one by one, to create something as intricate and precise—and though it is over twenty years old, as timely—as a Swiss watch.
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Article comments
1 - The Proprietor
I'd have to disagree about the graffiti, as we saw quite a bit of it from a train we took from Innsbruck to Zurich (admittedly this was about 15 years ago). Some of it was quite nasty stuff - I especially remember a large screed on a wall in Sargans glorifying Himmler.
2 - DrPat
McPhee notes that graffiti is much more common near the urban centers (Zurich, Geneva, Basel), and that a surprising number of those that do appear are in English.
The non-English ones he cites specifically are the circled-A (universal anarchy symbol) and CH=SS (Helvetian Confederation = Third Reich).