Auto Da Fé
‘How old are you?’
‘Nine and a bit.’
‘Which would you prefer, a piece of chocolate or a book?’
‘A book.’
‘Indeed? Splendid! So that’s your reason for standing here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you say so before?’
‘Father scolds me.’
‘Oh. And who is your father?’
‘Franz Metzger.’
‘Would you like to travel to a foreign country?’
‘Yes. To India. They have tigers there.’
‘And where else?’
‘To China. They’ve got a huge wall there.’
‘You’d like to scramble over it wouldn’t you?’
‘It’s much too thick and too high. Nobody can get over it. That’s why they built it.’
‘What a lot you know! You must have read a great deal already?’
‘Yes. I read all the time. Father takes my books away. I’d like to go to a Chinese school. They have forty thousand letters in their alphabet. You couldn’t get them all into one book.’
‘That’s only what you think.’
And then:
- The Human Factor He opened the book at random, or so he believed, but a book is like a sandy path that keeps...
- A Power Governments Cannot Suppress How refreshing it would be if a presidential candidate reminded us of the experience of the New Deal and defied...
- The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz Jachin-Boaz traded in maps. He bought and sold maps, and some, of certain kinds for special uses, he made or...
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius I tell her how funny it is we’re talking about all this because as it so happens I’m already working...
- The Meter i am not the man i seem, not a stable craft, monumental in the storm. i have great difficulty in...
- Television I examined my son’s drawings one after another. They were magnificent (and I’m not just saying that because he’s my...