The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter
Rating
The Pequod Review:
Matei Calinescu's The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter is less a novel than a series of philosophical aphorisms from the book’s charismatic Romanian protagonist. But his alternately crazed and brilliant thoughts have a surreal allure:
Circus -- the lowest stage of the spiritual -- may be expressed as an awareness of the absurd spectacle of our existence.
[...]
Hell is the absence of punishment, the yearning for chastisement; and responsibility is the hell of conscience.
[...]
I lie, therefore I do not exist... What saves me, in the end, is nostalgia for truth.
Recommended.