emily’s Reviews > 2666 > Status Update

‘He believed in redemption. Deep down—may even have believed in progress. Coincidence, on the other hand—obeys no laws and if it does we don’t know what they are. Coincidence, if you’ll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane—in that osseous implosion, we find communion—night plunged—’

‘One morning, after two days of feverish work on the self-portraits—the painter cut off his painting hand—applied a tourniquet to his arm & took the hand to a taxidermist—Then—hospital—to suture his arm—He said that he had cut off his hand with a machete blow while he was working, by mistake. The doctors asked where the amputated hand was—He said he’d thrown it in the river—out of sheer rage & pain—show sold out.’

‘—a woman who didn’t cling to the edge of the abyss but plunged into it with curiosity & elegance. A woman who plunged into the abyss sitting down—although she drank vodka, which surprised Espinoza & Pelletier, not that she would start to drink so early but that she wouldn’t offer them a drink—But she asked herself (and by extension, the two of them) how well anyone could really know another person—And that was all—'

‘—he—discovered—Jünger—became acquainted w/ more by osmosis than anything else—Madrid writers he admired (& deep down hated bitterly) talked nonstop about Jünger. So it could be said that Espinoza was acquainted w/ just one German author & that—was Jünger. At first he thought Jünger’s work was magnificent—He would have preferred it to be less easy—Liz—was a woman who found it easier to quit smoking than to go to war’