Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Roberto Bolano - 2666




 from Roberto Bolano - 2666

"One day fortune smiled on me and I attended one of these parties.  To say I met the philosopher would be an exaggeration.  I saw him.  In a corner of the room, talking to another poet and another philosopher.  He appeared to be giving a lecture.  Then everything seemed slightly off.  The guests were waiting for the poet to make his entrance.  They were waiting for him to pick a fight.  Or to defecate in the middle of the living room, on a Turkish carpet like the threadbare carpet from the Thousand and One Nights, a battered carpet that sometimes functioned as a mirror, reflecting all of us from below.  I mean:  it turned into a mirror at the command of our spasms.  Neurochemical spasms."

p 168 (translation by Natasha Wimmer - Picador)