Everything my guidebook said was true and also meaningless. Yes, the East was vast, teeming, and infinitely complex, but wasn’t the West also? Pointing out that the East was an inexhaustible source of riches and wonder only implied that it was peculiarly the case, and not so for the West. The Westerner, of course, took his riches and wonder for granted, just as I had never noticed the enchantment of the East or its mystery. If anything, it was the West that was often mysterious, frustrating, and really interesting, a world utterly different from everything I had known before I began my education. As with the Westerner, the Easterner was never so bored as he was when on his own shores.

Huvudpersonen, vietnamesisk flykting och kommunistisk underrättelseagent i USA, sitter på flyget på väg till Filippinerna och reagerar på det han läser i en guidebok om Asien. Bra formulerat, tyckte jag och fotade av citatet, och hittade det sedan som ett av just nu 353 (!) citat ur The Sympathizer inskrivna av läsare på Goodreads.

Jag läser och läser inför morgondagens dubbla evenemang, möte med bokcirkeln och samtal mellan Viet Thanh Nguyen och Andreas Norman på Handelshögskolan, där Internationell författarscen återigen äger rum.