"Reality always ends up betraying us; best to not give her the chance and get in there first."
-Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis
Even better, this line of dialogue is spoken by "Roberto Bolaño," a novelist then living in Blanes, Spain, who gives Cercas the idea he needs to write the section of the book in which this conversation takes place. Modernist or postmodern? Or perhaps they're the same thing...
I should also note the novel itself was excellent, the best I've read in several months.* So good, in fact, that I went to Amazon and ordered his four other novels.
*And may find its way into the "Politics and Literature" syllabus I'm organizing...
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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