2666: Take Any Book You Want

Halder, too, was the first to get Hans to read something other than Animals and Plants of the European Coastal Region. It wasn’t easy. First he asked whether he knew how to read. Hans Reiter said yes. Then he asked whether he’d ever read a good book. He stressed the word good. Hans Reiter said yes. He had a good book, he said. Halder asked what the book was. Hans Reiter told him it was Animals and Plants of the European Coastal Region. Halder said that must be a reference book and he meant a good literary book. Hans Reiter said he didn’t know the difference between a good refints (reference) book and a good litchy (literary) book. Halder said the difference lay in beauty, in the beauty of the story and the beauty of the language in which the story was told. Immediately he began to cite examples. He talked about Goethe and Schiller, he talked about Hölderlin and Kleist, he raved about Novalis. He said he had read all these authors and each time he reread them he wept.

“Wept,” he said, “wept, do you understand, Hans?”

To which Hans Reiter replied that the only books he had seen Halder with were history books. Halder’s answer took him by surprise. Halder said:

“It’s because I don’t have a proper grasp of history and I need to brush up.”

“What for?” asked Hans Reiter.

“To fill a void.”

“Voids can’t be filled,” said Hans Reiter.

“Yes, they can,” said Halder, “with a little effort everything in this world can be filled. When I was your age,” said Halder, clearly exaggerating, “I read Goethe until I couldn’t read anymore (although Goethe, of course, is infinite), but anyway I read Goethe, Eichendorff, Hoffman, and I neglected my studies of history, which are also needed in order to hone both edges of the blade, so to speak.”

Then, as dusk fell and they listened to the crackling of the fire, they tried to decide which book Hans Reiter should read first and were unable to agree. When night had come, Halder finally told him to take any book he wanted and return it in a week. The young servant agreed that this was the best solution.

—Roberto Bolaño, 2666