So that’s what art is, for the artist,” said Crake. “An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid. - Margaret Atwood

Perhaps they were looking for passion; perhaps they delved into this book as into a mysterious parcel - a gift box at the bottom of which, hidden in layers of rustling tissue paper, lay something they'd always longed for but couldn't ever grasp.

But in the end, back she comes. There's no use resisting. She goes to him for amnesia, for oblivion. She renders herself up, is blotted out; enters the darkness of her own body, forgets her name. Immolation is what she wants, however briefly. To exist without boundaries.

How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.