Carlos Fuentes

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INTERVIEWER

Have you ever been tempted to write in English?

FUENTES

No, I very soon came to realize that the English language did not need one more writer. That the English language has an unbroken tradition of excellence and when it goes to sleep there is always an Irishman who appears and wakes it up.

INTERVIEWER

Knowing so many languages, which language do you dream in?

FUENTES

I dream in Spanish; I also make love in Spanish.

-- Carlos Fuentes at The Paris Review (1981)

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America and the Middle East

Ross Douthat gives us a wonderful tutorial on our Middle East policy, explaining the change to a more limited and less hegemonic role for America, at least as pursued by the Obama administration. It is like a family having become poorer having to make do with less in a world that is demanding more. It makes for a wildly chaotic scene and a more unstable region with the body-count rising every day. We seem to be at a sort of pivot, too unsure ourselves of how things will shake out. These are indeed interesting times.

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The Big Room

Pop actually claimed the big room tonight. How long has it been since I had to clear out, and to sleep in my own bed. Has it been three weeks? Or only two? It is not as though guests have been staying over during all this time. I do not have any idea what this is about. It is not as though Pop is going to bed at nine in the evening, with old age catching up with him. Is it for me? I rather doubt it. I once asked him a few weeks ago, and he said it was because the room gets too cold, which actually made some sense, as the room would come close to breaking my tolerance for the cold, and I love a little nippy chill in the air, but it has not been cold these past couple of weeks. I don't know. Just when he gets his new curved smart-TV, too. In any case, maybe we are resuming the normal routine now.