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My Interest in Isaac B.
Singer
During the summer of
1999, the University of Texas had an exhibit in Undergraduate Library on
Issac Bachevis Singer. I was able to go see it and was fascinated and amazed
by what I learned. The exhibit touched me a bit I learned a lot. Singer
for one was the author of Yentl, though he was not at all pleased with Barbara
Streisand's approach to his story. Nor was I. The music lacked continuity
with the jewish lifestyle in my opinion. Too bloody Broadway!
Any case, one of the things that touched me the most I wrote down. Though
typically a controversial write, Singer took up writing children's books.
And he gave his reason why below:
Why I write for children
by Isaac Bachevis Singer
- Children read
books not reviews.
- Children don't
read to find their identity.
- They don't read
to free themselves from guilt, to quench their thirst for, or to get
rid of alienation.
- They have no use
for psychology.
- They detest sociology.
- They don't try
to understand Kafka or Finnegan's Wake.
- They still believe
in God, the family, agnels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clariy,
punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.
- They love interesting
stories, not commentary, guides or footnotes.
- When a book's
boring, they yawn openly, without any shame or fear of authority.
- They don't expect
their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Yours as they are, they know
that it is not in his powero. Only the adults have such childish illusions.
from "A Day of Pleasure:
Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw" 1970 |