The Perfect Borscht Is What Life Should

I Recognized Him Then; That Is, I Finally Comprehended What I Had Known But Had Never Been Able To Formulate: He Had Always Been Complete. He Had Finished The Work Of Becoming Himself, Long Before Any Of Us Could Even Imagine Such A Feat Was Possible.

Cliché Activates The Comfortable Mental Laziness, We Sort Of Revert To The Domain Of The Already-familiar, What We Have Already Imagined So That It Doesn't Seem That Bad.

Every Writer Owes Something To A Particular Tradition He/she Grew Up In. But No Serious Writer - Other Than The Militantly Nationalist Ones - Would Reduce His/her Domain Of Influence To A Single Tradition. Furthermore, Historical Breaks Are So Common And Large In Europe That There Are Ruptures In Every Tradition Which Then Connect The Same Generations Across National Borders. Younger Eastern European Writers, For Instance, Have More In Common With Other Writers Of The Same Age In Europe, Than With The Previous, Communist-era Generations In Their Own Countries.

I Have A Hard Time Imagining A Country Or A Government Where I Would Say, "oh, This Is Good," Where I Could Live Under A Government That I Respect For A Day Or A Week, Even To See What It Feels Like.

Chicago Is Not A Bad Place To Live. But The Usual Story Of Immigration Is The Happy Fulfillment Of Human Potential In America That Is Not Available Anywhere Else - It's Propaganda, Really. It's More Complicated Than That.