Tuesday, January 6, 2015

the last book I ever read (All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, excerpt nine)

from All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews:

I told her I had to track down my one-time philosophy professor, Benito Zetina Morelos.

That sounds like a BolaƱo novel, she said. Do you have his e-mail or his phone number? She took my hand and held it. I shook my head and told her I had to go to Kelvin High School and find him at the track, maybe. Tonight, she said, you should stay at my place and let me make a steak for you. I have wine. I think you really need protein. I can’t, I said, I have to get my mom and my cousin and my uncle to the hospital for six a.m., that’s when my aunt is having her surgery. And they’re all staying at my mom’s. Okay then tomorrow night, she said. I don’t think you should do the Switzerland thing. I don’t know, I said. Just because something’s legal doesn’t make it right, she said. Yeah, yeah, I said, but the core of the argument for it is maximizing individual autonomy and minimizing human suffering. Doesn’t that sound right? Are you hot? she said. She held a frozen steak to my forehead.

We drove to the airport and Julie stayed in the car right out front and snoozed with her arms full of meat while I went in to get my cousin and my uncle.



No comments:

Post a Comment