Philip Roth
he ends up saying some pretty interesting things. Here’s one passage—-
"Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about literature at all," I say.
"Ha,
ha," he says. "Now you’re talking! I would be wonderful with a 100-year
moratorium on literature talk, if you shut down all literature
departments, close the book reviews, ban the critics. The readers
should be alone with the books, and if anyone dared to say anything
about them, they would be shot or imprisoned right on the spot. Yes,
shot. A 100-year moratorium on insufferable literary talk. You should
let people fight with the books on their own and rediscover what they
are and what they are not. Anything other than this talk. Fairytale
talk. As soon as you generalise, you are in a completely different
universe than that of literature, and there’s no bridge between the
two."
