Borges and the Eternal Orangutans

He [Rotkopf] joked with the driver, asking if he was a porteño, a native of Buenos Aires, and if he too believed that Buenos Aires, that "simulation", really was a European city, and if, like all porteños, he considered himself to be "that physiological impossibility", a subequatorial Briton.  The driver was not amused.  By the look in his eyes when we got out of the car, it seemed to me that he too would gladly have seized the first opportunity to kill the German.

That is from Borges and the Eternal Orangutans, by Luis Fernando Verissimo, highly recommended.  How many excellent yet philosophical mysteries can you finish in an hour?