From the Grave

I’m still reading Rafael Chirbes’s diaries, which aren’t diaries at all. They are more edited, planned, and organized than any regular novel. These diaries are a novel! Every fake entry is so strategically placed into the steel framework of a structure that this can only be a novel.

Every page is like, you bastard! This is a novel! You did it on purpose!

What an amazing writer Chirbes was to be able to do this to readers from the grave. I’m overcome with wonder at the indomitable nature of the human spirit.