(Wonderful observations about Malamud, Kafka, Sebald, and others–and a scene set in the offices of New Directions. Fragments of DIETARIO VOLUBLE) Rosalind Harvey / translation
Writing – Roberto Bolaño said – is a rational, visionary activity, an exercise in intelligence and adventure. From among the multiple adventures, readers of the visionary Borges will never forget the spiral staircase, which plunges down and soars up off into the remote distance in his memorable tale ‘The Library of Babel’. When this story was first published in 1941, few could have imagined that this staircase would end up turning Borges into a demiurge, a strange visionary who described the Internet before it existed.