THE CITY OF ROPE

If someone had the tactile gift of finding painted prehistoric caves, he'd be torn apart between, on the one hand, talking others into following him and, on the other, crawling, wriggling, clawing, and sweating his way to the next trove. Alin Cristian sees in this the writer's condition: one works one's way to a vision, encased as the latter always is in obstructing matter. As for the value of this vision, only one thing is certain: those who have time to talk about it weren't graced with either the speleologist's feverish hands, or with his sense of urgency. Other caves clawed out of darkness by the same author include The Transcript, Silvestralia and The Lowest Country.