My parents only knew White Fang and The Call of the Wild, and from there they just assumed this was more of the same. The did not know better, and I never told them there was more to it than just an adventure book.

Now try to picture me, 12 years old, struggling with this passage:

"I believe life is like foam, like a ferment," he promptly replied. "A thing that has movement and can keep moving for a minute, an hour, a year or a hundred years, but in the end it will stop moving. The big one eats the small one to keep moving; the strong one eats the weak one to preserve its strength. The fortunate one eats the most and moves the longest, that’s all. What do you think of these things?"

Retrotranslation into English by myself, with all its likely problems and probable lack of similarity.

At that age, questioning the very value of life in such a way was indeed a bitter pill. But later, during adolescence, that bit would bloom into full blown cinicism that lasted quite a bit before fading away.

Thanks a lot for your words and fot stopping by my post.