Snobbery? But It's Only A Form Of

Who Included Me Among The Ranks Of The Human Race?

I Had This Fantasy Of Becoming A Neurosurgeon. You Know, The Normal Jewish Boy Fantasy, But I Wanted To Be A Neurosurgeon For Some Reason. So I Started In This Unpleasant Way. I Was An Assistant To The Coroner, Opening Up Corpses, Taking The Innards Out, Opening Skulls, Taking The Brains Out.

Twentieth-century Russian Literature Has Produced Nothing Special Except Perhaps One Novel And Two Stories By Andrei Platonov, Who Ended His Days Sweeping Streets.

As A Form Of Moral Insurance, At Least, Literature Is Much More Dependable Than A System Of Beliefs Or A Philosophical Doctrine. Since There Are No Laws That Can Protect Us From Ourselves, No Criminal Code Is Capable Of Preventing A True Crime Against Literature; Though We Can Condemn The Material Suppression Of Literature - The Persecution Of Writers, Acts Of Censorship, The Burning Of Books - We Are Powerless When It Comes To Its Worst Violation: That Of Not Reading The Books. For That Crime, A Person Pays With His Whole Life; If The Offender Is A Nation, It Pays With Its History.

In General, In America, Every Discourse In Literature In 15 Minutes Degenerates Into A Conversation About Ethics, Morality And This And That. The Holocaust And The Consequences Of It. Well, I Find It Terribly Boring, Predictable And Unimportant, Because What Matters About Literature Is Esthetic Achievement.