[b]Günter Grass
Grownups have it in them to be creative, and sometimes, with the help of ambition, hard work, and a bit of luck they actually are, but being grownups, they have no sooner created some epoch-making invention than they become a slave to it.[/b]
Not counting us of course.
But every time I shunned books, as scholars sometimes do, cursed them as verbal graveyards, and tried to make contact with the common folk, I ran up against the kids in our building and felt fortunate, after a few brushes with those little cannibals, to return to my reading in one piece.
Tell me that hasn’t only gotten more relevant. And here we have the Kids too.
An entire gullible nation believed faithfully in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really the Gasman.
Of course here [for some] he’s the President.
And Oskar was kneeling at the left side-altar, trying to teach the boy Jesus how to drum, but the rascal wouldn’t drum, offered no miracle. Oskar had sworn back then and swore again outside the locked church door: I’ll teach him to drum yet. Sooner or later.
That’ll be a miracle.
The grim portrait of Beethoven hanging over the piano . . . was removed from its nail, and an equally grim portrait of Hitler was hung on the same nail. . . . Mama . . . insisted that Beethoven be placed, if not over the sofa, at least over the sideboard. This resulted in the grimmest of confrontations: Hitler and the genius hung opposite each other, stared at each other, saw through each other, yet found no joy in what they saw.
And now of course they’re both long dead and gone.
Or you can start by declaring that novels can no longer be written, and then, behind your own back as it were, produce a mighty blockbuster that establishes you as the last of the great novelists.
On the other hand, is it possible that this does make sense?