The world will start to breathe
- I have read all the books that have been written, Mr Goldberg, and it makes me melancholy. A terrible tedium comes upon me whenever I open again one of these volumes, or even when another voice renders me their contents.
- But would not a new book arouse your interest too much? I asked him, would it not have the effect of keeping you awake rather than the desired one of sending you to sleep?
- My friend, he said, you speak without thought. A new story, a story which is really new and really a story, will give the person who reads or hears it the sense that the world has become alive again for him. I would put it like this: the world will start to breathe for him where before it had seemed as if made of ice or rock. And it is only in the arms of that which breathes that we can fall asleep, for only then are we confident that we will ourselves wake up alive. Am I not right, my friend?
- But would not a new book arouse your interest too much? I asked him, would it not have the effect of keeping you awake rather than the desired one of sending you to sleep?
- My friend, he said, you speak without thought. A new story, a story which is really new and really a story, will give the person who reads or hears it the sense that the world has become alive again for him. I would put it like this: the world will start to breathe for him where before it had seemed as if made of ice or rock. And it is only in the arms of that which breathes that we can fall asleep, for only then are we confident that we will ourselves wake up alive. Am I not right, my friend?
Gabriel Josipovici, Goldberg: Variations, Ecco, $13.95
