JULES OLiTSKI
233
(The narrator says that. It's the first sentence of the book.)
Today I feel like I'm dying.
When someone read this book, at that first sentence, he said,
"No, you can't begin like that, it sounds .
.. ,"
I think he said
Nabokov or perhaps it was Beckett.
So
.. .
so
...
so
what
you might say,
I
might say, that is if I
were talking to myself, I might say, so what, so what if Beckett or
Nabokov began like that? So it's not original, so how important
is it to be original? And even that's not entirely the problem. The
problem is also that I don ' t like Beckett or Nabokov. I used to, I
used to like them both. Read almost everything they'd written.
Now I don ' t like them anymore. I don't want to get into literary
criticism where I might well be exposed as a stupid ignoramus.
Yes, I confess it, I am afraid, deeply afraid of being thought
stupid. My stepfather "Kaiser" Hymie always maintained that I
am stupid. He maintained it day in and day out. If he were still
alive, he would be saying it now. My mother never said any–
thing. She didn't have to. Her look said it. She agreed with the
"Kaiser." She's still alive and her look when I see her, which
isn't often, still says it.
God, I've digressed.
To get back to Beckett and Nabokov. Oh, I'm sure that if I
put myself to it, I could write something passable, no, even first
rate as to why I no longer like Beckett and Nabokov. Does that
sound vain? How can I believe it would be that good if under–
neath everything I'm convinced I'm stupid? It's bad enough to
be stupid. To be vain besides-that's fatal . How did I get into all
this?
Or
why? I'll tell you why. In the interest of truth, that's
why. I'm telling the truth about myself. I'm exposing myself. Is
exposing the same thing as being truthful? This line will get me
into philosophy and I'll have to make still another confession of
what I am and am not. Stupid, yes, a philosopher I'm not. I'll
leave it at that. O.K. , so I'm stupid. There it is, in one line, I'm
telling the truth about myself, at least as I know the truth, and
exposing myself at the same time. What could be better? But
there's more to it than that. Why am I telling you that I'm
stupid? So that you'll like me! Yes, like me. Telling on oneself is
