Jules Olitski
FIRST CHAPTER (A SHORT STORY)
This is a book I am writing. This is the first chapter. I
will put what I say in italics to distinguish what I have to say
from my narrator and what he has to say. Of course everything he
has to say, I, myself have put in his mouth. It 's just a matter of
accepting on your part the suspension of disbeLief, which we're
all accustomed to doing in the theater, movies, novels, etc. What
I mean is that although the narrator is out of me-I've created
him-he is not me. The same appLies to my characters.
So
then,
the narrator is himself, I am myself, and the characters are
themselves. It's important to me that you believe that . Important
to me for reasons that will become clear as we
go
ahead. The
reasons aren' t necessariLy good reasons, decent reasons, anything
for me to be proud of, but they are
reasons.
My reasons.
I've got to find a way to talk to myself in order to write this
book.
Or
do I mean find a way to talk to you?
Or
both? Anyway,
it must be over ten years, perhaps fifteen by now, and stiLL the
problem of how to begin. And n.ot only how to begin. There are
all sorts of probLems. The main probLem is me. In the book I am
writing there is a narrator. The narrator is also writing a book.
His book is Largely about a character named Yulli. YuLLi is a
middle-aged painter, but so is my narrator, and so am I. You see
how this could get confusing? And there are no end of probLems
to sort out. The very first sentence of the book-the one the
narrator is writing-is a probLem. A probLem for me, not him. It
should be a problem for him as well as me. But somehow it isn't.
(So maybe he and I aren't the same after all. If we were the same
it wouLd be our problem, not just my probLem.) Here's the
sentence:
Today I feel like I'm dying.
