The man has a way with words

I’m charging ballistically through the Sunday LA Times because I bought it today and I want to read it before it becomes “old news”—at midnight.

In the book review section, I found an essay by Jonathan Safran Foer, one of a very few writers who I think must certainly have made some kind of deal with the devil, given the way he writes. I recommend the essay to everyone, if only because it kicks ass:

PETR GINZ’S parents met at an Esperanto conference. That detail jumped out at me from the introduction to Petr’s diary, written by his sister, Chava Pressburger. A failed language — a bad idea born out of a good instinct — Esperanto held the promise of universal communication. Everyone would understand everyone all the time: A new Eden would grow out of the rubble of Babel. Petr was, quite literally, the product of that dream.