No amount of eccentricity can prepare for the surreal experience that is Nigeria. Recall the prologue to Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, when we are introduced to Capt. Willard. For one, there is a debilitating sickness here, painless yet fatal, sprawling unchecked and anonymous; most here are susceptible to it. The medical term escapes me but it is commonly known as “delusions of relevance”. The usual antidote, a hefty dose of artificially-enhanced Cynicism, is mere placebo in this context.
Exile ends the tyranny of the émigré novel; reading is self-defeating and itself becomes a byway to neurosis. Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons (from nineteen eighty eight) and EB’s Marlene Dietrich lived here compete with melatonin for space on the bedside table. Eric Alliez’s Capital Times, a dense, incisive, distinctly French, treatment of St. Augustine, our holiest Bishop, founder and architect of incipient modernity. Something to really wake you up in the mornings: industrial strength caffeine to counter chemically-enhanced Cynicism.
Chris Groves’ agent wrote with news that Northwestern University Press is poised to publish his first book. Well done! (I jest about the agent) Incidentally, Chris and I once trekked through Berlin snow to visit Hegel’s grave on the 167th anniversary of his death.
The following anniversary fell during the week and I arrived after the Dorotheenstädtisch Friedhof along Chausseestraße had closed. Darkness was no obstacle as the cemetery walls were scaled in the service of the Absolute.
