Posted by andyb on March 02, 2009 at 14:02:18 user beardbiter.
In Reply to: doll eyes closing posted by allym on March 02, 2009 at 06:04:15:
Must admit I never thought the doll's eyes passage was meant to convey anything more than the contrast between Cdr Walker's breezy passage through customs and his children's anxieties about how they would enter a foreign port.
But who knows? The idea of taxing dolls with eyes that shut sounds like something out of Borges' (apocryphal?) Chinese Encyclopedia which classifies animals by categories such as 'belonging to the emperor' 'seen from far away' and 'can be drawn with a fine brush'.