Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Then the off-voice of the TV presenter almost bellows that such a scene has been reported
and witnessed in many places all around the country. Clicking rapidly like animated slides, the same
scene repeats itself – indefinitely, thinks R. – and every time the same angry faces hooting and
dancing; every time thousands of copies of R.’s book being consumed in the unbearable violence of
the auto-da-fé; every time the same word, ‘decadent’, being chanted; every time the clenched fist
thrown at the sky beseeching a divine judgement. The repulsive show lasts more than twenty
minutes, during which the invisible presenter very professionally utters almost no word. Twenty
minutes, during which the same atrocious scene echoed itself, like a fractal after-image duplicated
up to infinity. R.’s mother does not move – cannot move. His father’s face has dropped, but we can
say he stands up heroically to the offence.