Tuesday, October 8, 2024

the last book I ever read (The Carpenter's Pencil: A Novel of the Spanish Civil War, excerpt two)

from The Carpenter's Pencil: A Novel of the Spanish Civil War by Manuel Rivas:

Doctor Da Barca smiled thoughtfully. Then he said, “The only good thing about borders are the secret crossings. It’s incredible the effect an imaginary line can have. It gets traced one day by some doddering king in his bed or drawn on the table by powerful men as if they were playing a game of poker. I remember a terrible thing a man once said to me, ‘My grandfather was the lowest of the low.’ ‘Why? What did he do?’ I asked. ‘Did he kill someone?’ ‘No, no. My paternal grandfather served a Portuguese.’ He was drunk with historical bile. ‘Well,’ I said to annoy him, ‘if I were to choose a passport, I’d be a Portuguese.’ Fortunately, however, this border will soon be swallowed up in its own absurdity. True borders are those that keep the poor away from a share of the cake.”



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