No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story. No Kings.
As the scholars of The Republic delve into Hitler studies, the specialized branches of research sprout increasingly weird. How about a specialty in Hitlerian pornography, or the sub-trend of Chilean naming of their sons “Hitler”, and how about a trip to Chile to interview them? Or a study of a fashion in Hitler moustaches?
How much one can learn from inebriates! Lonely in the city of my birth, that kissing monster from adolescence plays lip roulette again, then vanishes into the dark.
I can’t explain to you how miserable I find this place, which pretty much suits where I’m at—I’m just a worn out, middle-aged cop with nothing better to do than drink myself stupid.
To scratch is to admit feeling,fingernails peeling, revealing sensation that no Zeno or Kant,Hegel or Lacan can recant,
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami consists of about 65 short chapters each named after a character, each of whom speaks in first person. Chapter headings repeat, which is a clever way to gauge the importance of each character in the structure of the story.
There’s a lot to be said for being able to appreciate the uncertain space between winter and spring, an unusually long space this year, after an unending winter.