While culling my rather small book collection I came across a book I had
forgotten I had or even read: Yann Martel, The facts behind the Helsinki
Roccamatios.
It is a book which presents as a series of short stories but more
accurately would call a complex assemblage of Plateaus, to use a concept
from Deleuze's afterwards transcendental (opposed to the Kantian
a-priori) which Yann Martel begins the book with as a 19 year old
student who continually failed his a-priori Kantian philosophy courses.
But I must send this short quote from page 71.
"The results are in. Paul has a fungus called _Cryptococcus neoformans_
in his spinal fluid. There is a risk of meningo-encephalitis. The thing
could go to his brain. The doctors are going to keep a close watch. At
the smallest sign he will be put on amphotericin B and flucytosine. He
is strangely calm. I want to forget it all. I want to be a million miles
from all this.
(itals) _1943 --Emile Gagnam and Jacques Cousteau invent the first
autonomous underwater breathing apparatus. Scuba diving is born._
end itals and quote here (That underline dash is the old indication of
itals btw.)
It won the 2002 Man Booker prize.
(It made me think of the days ((daze)) I felt as a young up and coming
man working on the top executive floor of a prestigious consulting
engineering firm and was (mis)diagnosed with AIDS. In the executive wash
rooms with me my boss was careful not to get cum stains on his suit
which his wife would see before taking it to the dry cleaners. Today
this would be called sexual harassment.)
Blog: http://abdevpoetics.blogspot.com/
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