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PARTISAN REVIEW
when he is quite drunk Blecha gets overemotional and must tell you
the truth. He came up to the table where I was having my lunch and
he asked if everything is all right. He said he wished he could help an
old friend in trouble, and then he whispered, 'Perhaps in a few
month's time . . . but they do not like that you are so alienated,
Rudolf. The phenomenon of alienation is not approved of from
above . Still, I will do what I can .. .' But then he sat suddenly at the
table and he said, 'But you must not go around Prague telling lies
about me, Rudolf. Nobody believes you anyway. My books are
everywhere: schoolchildren read my poems, tens of thousands of
people read my novels, on TV they perform my dramas. You only
make yourself look irresponsible and bitter by telling that story.
And, if I may say so, a little crazy.' So I said to him, 'But Blecha, I
don't tell it. I have never told it to a soul.' And he said, 'Come now,
my dear old friend-how then does everybody know?" And so I said,
'Because their children read your poems, they themselves have read
your novels, and when they turn on TV, they see your dramas.'"
Philip Roth's latest novel is
The Anatomy Lesson,
published by
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 1983.
