“Rather than try to reconstruct the castle, we’re going to turn it into a work of art. To my mind, there’s nothing more mysterious or beautiful than a wall. I can already see it: standing out there in the meadow, rising up like some enormous barrier against time. It will be a memorial to itself, gentlemen, a symphony of resurrected stones, and every day it will sing a dirge for the past we carry within us.”

from Paul Auster, The Music of Chance (1990)