42
PARTISAN REVIEW
Edith Kurzweil:
Thank you, Andre Aciman. I am sure that the people in
the audience, who have their own memories, and who are bedeviled,
maybe not by Alexandria, but by some other place, are going to want
to ask questions or make comments.
Leslie Epstein:
When Mr. Aciman was speaking, I could not help-espe–
cially when he was speaking of Proust-of thinking of Kafka, perhaps
the greatest temporizer of the last century, who I think once said that
there was no such thing as a pleasant surprise. What occurred to me was
that the way out of that dimple and into life for both Proust and Kafka
was the exercise of imagination. But what separated them was that for
Proust that exercise was through memory, and for Ka fka it was through
a kind of forethought or apprehension, lest some kind of surprise fall
upon him. I wondered if you had any kind of comment, perhaps, on the
relationship of Kafka and Proust.
Andre Aciman:
It's a brilliant question. Proust had, I think, an easier
time of it, considering the fact that, among other things, he shared with
Kafka many health problems. I think Proust had an easier time of it
because, to use Michal Govrin's term, he "usurped" or borrowed an
existing form-the nineteenth-century novel. He borrowed that form
tailored it to his memories and his narrative, to suit a particular mold.
This might eventually become his biggest challenge; as time moves on,
we will not find him obsolete, but we will find that the genre of the nine–
teenth-century novel, which he was clearly reacting to, but was also
deeply inscribed in, may stand in our way of digesting Proust.
In parentheses, I want to state that I think the greatest writers we've
had in the West have in one way or another invented or discovered the
form that was ideal for them. I don't think you can have a great writer
who hasn't in a sense innovated form, or come to grips with form. You
can't just say, "] am going to become a great writer and write a novel,"
it doesn't work. I have to say-and you may disagree with me-that
Kafka (and you can say the same thing about Walter Benjamin) could
never quite find the form that was right for him. In other words, the
vision, powerful and compelling as it is, has never quite found its most
appropriate form. This is a totally personal, almost biographical way of
looking at it. Kafka for me will always be an author who is
almost
very
great, but not quite, because the form is not up
to
the task.
Now, I'm going to make an even worse statement. If you look at Vir–
ginia Woolf as a novelist, she is totally secondary; but her diaries are
