Now, before I let Mother Night go back to the library, let me share my favorite passage. The main character pretends to be a Nazi and he plays the part perfectly. Too perfectly. He says this about himself:
Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself—will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows—some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history—
But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, “This fact I can do without.”
So he’s not crazy, he’s just a monster!
This passage caught my attention because I understand the temptation to tamper with one’s thinking machine. There are some facts I could do without quite nicely, thank you, including almost everything I’ve ever heard about global warming, war, disease, death, and belly-button lint.