734
PARTISAN REVIEW
with the passion of a flagellant, the devotion of a disciple being dictated
to but left alone to affix his own corrections. First and last lines, begin–
nings and endings, were peripheral compared to describing character, the
details of location, moods, dia logues, particularities. To be able to write
also was a sign of having reached mature manhood. The pen that is
mightier than the sword was made of pure, masculine imagination. Even
by writing unpublishable stuff, I felt that I was fighting the N azis. Be–
sides, that one should walk before one flies is an important lesson to
learn.
The harder the material, the more I enjoyed trying
to
solve the
problems. The only depressing thing was reading the work of my friends.
One never could be one hundred percent sure that one had done one's
best, if one saw how much better others handled the language. Within
my small circle, writing was competition: we'd let others look at our
work and allow them their opinion, not always a wise thing. Depending
on the mood, even your best and maybe your only friend would hunch
his shoulders and say, ''I'm not sure," or worse, "What did you intend
to say with this?" Real progress depended on harsh self-criticism, on using
intelligently the author's automatic, built-in "shit detector, " to quote
Ernest Hemingway. On the other hand, a sharp-witted critic, though he
may not be able to teach you how to write, may teach you not to take
yourself too seriously. Of course, praise put me in the best mood of all. I
preferred it, because then I could dismiss it with a wave of the hand.
What I saw around me was a wounded people shouting their hearts
out in agony, while a choir of thunderous voices yelled, swore, bel–
lowed, barked, and snarled at them. And cursed them to death. Long
before it rained bullets and bombs, I heard an orchestra of exploding
anger and agony - in German, the only language I knew by heart! I
wished I had been born to a language less cruel, less mean, less sentimen–
tal , less pompous, less bitter and biting. I wished I had been born in
London or Paris or Rome or anywhere else in the world. Because I was
born in Vienna, my masters were Heine and Tucholsky, Morgenstern and
Fallada, Zweig and Wasserman, Kafka and Brad . Of Russian and Yiddish
authors in German translation, my favorites, romantic and melodious,
were Gorky and Gogol, Sholem Aleichem and Yizchak Lab Perez. This
was the kind of German I was about to learn but, alas, it was too late.
We saw the book- burning in the Berlin streets on newsreels, carried out
with the vulgarity of drunken crowds at the fair. German? Learn to for–
get it, just like the city and its empty fleshpots. One choir humming,
howling, crying
oy
veil iz lIIir,
and another yelling
SieJ? Hei!.
Let me out
of here!
Between the ages of twelve and sixteen, it's time to think about
what to do with one's life . Our chances of surviving the war seemed at
