Lovemaking seems all too absurd when described.

Life doesn't retreat.

The Victorians, they were like the Germans in World War II. They could not stop recording details about their lives and their age.

Every age fraught with discord and danger seems to spawn a leader meant only for that age, a political giant whose absence, in retrospect, seems inconceivable when the history of that age is written.

As for the depiction of the Catholic church, it's not meant to be a prediction

It no longer matters who consider themselves the masters of events. Events no longer obey their masters.

... all good things beyond sleep come precisely because we defy gravity while we live.