Explore "Destiny and Desire" by Carlos Fuentes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Permit me to introduce myself. Or rather: introduce my body, violently separated (you know this already) from my head. I speak of my body because I've lost it and will not have another opportunity to introduce it to all of you, gentle readers, or to myself. In this way I can indicate, once and for all, that the following narration has been dictated by my head and only my head, since my detached body is nothing more than a memory: one that can be transmitted and left in the hands of the forewarned reader.
Forewarned indeed: The body is at least half of what we are. Still, we keep it hidden in a verbal closet. For the sake of modesty, we do not refer to its invaluable and indispensable functions. Forgive me: I will speak in detail about my body. Because if I don't, very soon my body will be nothing but an unburied corpse, a slaughtered fowl, an anonymous loin. And if you, being very well bred, don't want to know about my bodily intimacies, skip this chapter and begin your reading with the next one.