Spadework for a Palace

Spadework for a Palace bears the subtitle Entering the Madness of Others and offers an epigraph: Reality is no obstacle. Indeed. This high-octane obsessive rant vaults over all obstacles, fueled by the idées fixe of a gray little librarian with fallen arches whose name-mr herman melvill-is merely one of the coincidences binding him to his lodestar Herman Melville ( I too resided on East 26th Street . . . I, too, had worked for a while at the Customs Office ), which itself is just one aspect of his also being constantly conscious of his connectedness to Lebbeus Woods, to the rock that is Manhattan, to the drunkard Lowry and his Lunar Caustic, to Bartok. And with this consciousness of connection he is not only gaining true knowledge of Melville, but also tracing the paths to a Serene Paradise of Knowledge. Driven to save that Palace (a higher library he also serves), he loses his job and his wife leaves him, but people must be told the truth: there is no dualism in...

The cheapest new copy of Spadework for a Palace is €16.55 at preigu DE. Prices checked 2 Nov 2026

More by László Krasznahorkai

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