Can I read Spadework for a Palace : Entering the Madness of Others on EtoBox?

Spadework for a Palace : Entering the Madness of Others by László Krasznahorkai, John Batki is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Spadework for a Palace : Entering the Madness of Others about?

A joyful ode—in a single soaring, crazy sentence—to the interconnectedness of great (and mad) minds 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 existence.” And his dream will be “realized, for I am not giving up: I am merely a day-laborer, a spade-worke

Who reads Spadework for a Palace : Entering the Madness of Others?

Author

László Krasznahorkai, John Batki

Publisher

New Directions Publishing Corporation

Published

2022

Language

EN

ISBN

9780811228411

Category

work of fiction

Subjects

Literary Fiction, Language Learning, Humanities

Updated

2026-03-24