Most of us know the parents or grandparents we come from. But we go back and back, forever; we go back all of us to the very beginning; in our blood and bone and brain we carry the memories of thousands of beings. . . . We cannot understand all the traits we have inherited. Sometimes we are strangers to ourselves.
— V. S. Naipaul, To Hear God's Word, Listen to the World by William Reiser