“We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings.”
- Alfred Jarry, Ubu Roi
Bleaching ground
From Vincent to Theo from The HagueJuly 1882
“The soul has died with Gregor; the healthy young animal takes over. The parasites have fattened themselves on Gregor.” Nabokov’s note in his annotated copy.
“I saw my own face and my own bowels; I saw your face; and I felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had seen that secret and conjectured object whose name is common to all men but which no man has looked upon — the unimaginable universe.”
Jorge Luis Borges. El Aleph, 1945. Translation by Norman Thomas Di Giovanni in collaboration with the author.
