Nimitha’s Reviews > Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador > Status Update

and every time I've passed by this place they decided to call “Monument to the Distant Brother,” the only thing it has done is excite my kidneys. It’s a masterpiece of the degradation of taste: a gigantic urinal constructed in appreciation of men in sombreros and chubby women who live in the United States loaded down with boxes replete with useless crap, said Vega

"Moya, it’s the most hair-raising thing I have ever seen; the so-called Monument to the Distant Brother actually seems like a gigantic urinal, this monument with its enormous wall of tiles doesn’t evoke anything other than a urinal, I swear to you, Moya, when I saw it for the first time I didn’t feel anything other than an urge to urinate, "

:D

"It's an illiterate culture, Moya, a culture that denies itself the written word, without any vocation of record or historical memory, without any perception of the past, it’s a “gadfly culture” whose only horizon is the present, the immediate, a culture with the memory of a gadfly, crashing every two seconds against the same window glass because after two seconds it’s already forgotten that the glass existed."

You can imagine, Moya, as if I considered patriotism a virtue, as if I weren’t completely sure that patriotism is one of many stupidities invented by politicians, as if patriotism had anything to do with these fatty tortillas stuffed with chicharron that always destroy my intestines

I once refused in such a way that my brother suddenly understood I wasn't joking, I wasn't going to eat those repugnant pupusas and perhaps this was the first altercation we had, in Balboa Park he began to reproach my ingratitude and what he called my lack of patriotism.

The people of this country are fighting against knowledge and intellectual curiosity, Moya, I’m completely sure that this country is out of sync with time and the world, it only existed when it was a bloodbath, it only existed thanks to the thousands who were assassinated, thanks to the criminal capacity of the military and the communists

the moment you arrive here,to get on a bus is to realize you've put your life in the hands of a criminal who drives as fast as possible,who doesn't respect stop signs or red lights or any sort of traffic signals, a lunatic whose sole goal is to end up with the highest number of lives in his hands in the shortest possible time, said Vega. It’s terrifying, Moya, an experience that’s not recommended for cardiac patients

It’s incredible, Moya, the bus drivers have been pathological criminals since birth, criminals converted into salaried bus drivers, said Vega, they’re guys who were no doubt torturers and participated in massacres during the civil war and now they’re recycled as bus drivers
:D

There’s nothing more detestable to me than sports, Moya, nothing seems more boring and stupid than sports, most of all the National Soccer League, I don’t understand how my brother could give a damn about twenty-two undernourished morons running after a ball, only someone like my brother could almost have a heart attack about the stumbling of twenty-two undernourished men running after a ball.
:D :D

For fifteen days I haven't had a conversation that’s been worth it, Moya, for fifteen days these two have talked to me only about keys, locks, and doorknobs, and about the papers I should sign to make the sale of my mother's house possible, it’s horrible, Moya