From So Much Of This Seriously-intended Pornography

Critics Have Been Amusing Themselves For A Long Time By Auscultating Fiction For Signs Of Heart Failure.

Inevitably, The Flood Of Literary Pornography Loosed On Us Is Dulling Our Reactions Of Surprise Or Shock. Its Writers Are Forced To Raise The Ante, To Provide Stronger And Stronger Stimulants. Or Try To Provide Them, Since Both The Manner, The Naming Of Parts And The Few Inexpressive Four-letter Words, And The Matter, Are Narrowly Limited.

To Reject Censorship After Studying The Risks Involved Is Very Well. To Reject It Ex Cathedra, In The Tones Of Calvin Pronouncing A Dogma, Eyes And Mind Closed To The Possible Consequences, The Even Marginally Possible, Is To Make Things Too Comfortable For Oneself.

The Gesture With Which One Generation Guards The Next Is The Movement, And The Only Time We See It Clearly, Of Life Itself.

Hope Is A Talent Like Any Other.