Week before last I went to Wesleyan and read “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” After it I went to one of the classes where I was asked questions. There were a couple of young teachers there and one of them, an earnest type, started asking the questions. “Miss O’Connor,” he said, “why was the Misfit’s hat black?” I said most countrymen in Georgia wore black hats. He looked pretty disappointed. Then he said, “Miss O’Connor, the Misfit represents Christ, does he not?” “He does not,” I said. He looked crushed. “Well, Miss O’Connor,” he said, “what is the significance of the Misfit’s hat?” I said it was to cover his head; and after that he left me alone. Anyway, that’s what’s happening to the teaching of literature.

I have always lusted after a sepia-toned library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a sliding ladder. I fantasie about Tennessee Williams' types of evenings involving rum on the porch. I long for balmy slightly sleepless nights with nothing but the whoosh of a wooden ceiling fan to keep me company, and the joy of finding the cool spot on the bed. I would while away my days jotting down my thoughts in a battered leather-bound notebook, which would have been given to me by some former lover. My scribbling would form the basis of a best-selling novel, which they wold discuss in tiny independent bookshops on quaint little streets in forgotten corners of terribly romantic European cities. In other words, I fantasize about being credible, in that artistic, slightly bohemian way that only girls with very long legs can get away with.

This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this person will be in a car or a store or under a vinyl canopy when it happens. Or online or on the phone. It could be an e-mail re: your knighthood. Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying, You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that.

Çocuk müthişti. Kaldırımda yürümüyordu, ama kaldırımın hemen dibinden, dümdüz bir çizgide yürüyormuş gibi yapıyordu, çoğu çocuklar gibi ve durmadan, "Yakalarsa birini biri, çavdarlar arasında," şarkısını söylüyordu. Güzel bir sesi vardı. Üstelik, şarkıyı felaket iyi söylüyordu. Arabalar yanından vızır vızır geçiyor, frenler cayır cayır ötüyor o kaldırımın dibinden yürüyor, "Yakalarsa birini biri, çavdarlar arasında," şarkısını söylüyordu. Öyle hoşuma gitti ki. Artık pek fazla moral bozukluğu hissetmiyordum.

Her neyse, hep, büyük bir çavdar tarlasında oyun oynayan çocuklar getiriyorum gözümün önüne. Binlerce çocuk, başka kimse yok ortalıkta yetişkin hiç kimse, yani benden başka. Ve çılgın bir uçurumun kenarında durmuşum. Ne yapıyorum, uçuruma yaklaşan herkesi yakalıyorum; nereye gittiklerine hiç bakmadan koşarlarken, ben bir yerlerden çıkıyor, onları yakalıyorum. Bütün gün yalnızca bu işi yapıyorum. Ben, çavdar tarlasında çocukları yakalayan biri olmak isterdim. Çılgın bir şey bu, biliyorum, ama ben yalnızca böyle biri olmak isterdim. Biliyorum, bu çılgın bir şey.

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years—generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad—ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice—ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much—ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.

The Cool Stuff Theory of Literature is as follows: All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what's cool. And that works all the way from the external trappings to the level of metaphor, subtext, and the way one uses words. In other words, I happen not to think that full-plate armor and great big honking greatswords are cool. I don't like 'em. I like cloaks and rapiers. So I write stories with a lot of cloaks and rapiers in 'em, 'cause that's cool. Guys who like military hardware, who think advanced military hardware is cool, are not gonna jump all over my books, because they have other ideas about what's cool.The novel should be understood as a structure built to accommodate the greatest possible amount of cool stuff.

Fotoğrafı kaldırmaya isteksiz görünüyordu; bir müddet daha, oyalanırcasına onu gözümün önünde tuttu. Yeniden cüzdanına koyduktan sonra, bu defa cebinden Hopalang Cassidy adlı eski bir kitap çıkardı "Şuna bir bak, bunu çocukken hiç elinden düşürmezdi. Daha o zamandan belliydi." "Bu kitabı şans eseri buldum" dedi ihtiyar, "durumu gayet iyi açıklıyor değilmi?" "Jimmy'nin hayatta ilerleyeceği kesindi. Her zaman buna benzer kararlar alırdı. Kendini geliştirmek için neler yapmış gördün mü? Hep böyle yapardı. Bir keresinde bana bir domuz gibi yemek yediğimi söylemişti de ben de onu dövmüştüm.

Ağıtı asıl yönetenler ölünün kadın akrabalarıydı. Ağıtta eski geleneklerle kurulmuş, soğukkanlılıkla düşünülmüş bir düzen bulunduğu anlaşılıyordu. Akrabalığı uzakça olanlar tabutun yanında biraz duruyorlar, seslerini fazla yükseltmeden ağlayarak bir şeyler söylüyorlardı. Daha yakın olanlar eşikten girer girmez ağlamaya başlıyorlar, ölünün yanına gelince üzerine eğilerek çığlığı koyveriyorlardı. Her kadının ağlayışının ayrı bir ezgisi vardı; bununla duygularını düşüncelerini anlatıyorlardı.

Demka açık fikirli bir çocuktu; dinin kişiyi uyuşturan bir inanış olduğunu, yalnızca kötü kişilerin yararlanabileceği gerici bir öğretim niteliği taşıdığını kesinlikle, açıkça anlamıştı. Din yüzünden bazı bölgelerdeki işçiler sömürülmekten kurtulamıyorlardı. Oysa dinle ilişkilerini keser kesmez silahlara sarılıyor özgürlüklerine kavuşuyorlardı. Bu yüzden, gülünç takvimi, her cümlede Allah sözcüğü, bu uğursuz hastanede bile eksik etmediği kaygısız gülümsemesi ve ona ikram ettiği böreğiyle Stefa teyze gerici bir insandı.

If human nature does alter it will be because individuals manage to look at themselves in a new way. Here and there people — a very few people, but a few novelists are among them — are trying to do this. Every institution and vested interest is against such a search: organized religion, the State, the family in its economic aspect, have nothing to gain, and it is only when outward prohibitions weaken that it can proceed: history conditions it to that extent. Perhaps the searchers will fail, perhaps it is impossible for the instrument of contemplation to contemplate itself, perhaps if it is possible it means the end of imaginative literature — [...] anyhow—that way lies movement and even combustion for the novel, for if the novelist sees himself differently, he will see his characters differently and a new system of lighting will result.

كانت العجوز تقف بالضد من علامات التعجب، لان مثل هذه العلامات، ربما كان القصد منها، زواجاً غير شرعى أو غير قانوني، يؤدى إلى اختلاط الطبقات الاجتماعية.

But just understand the difference between a man like Reardon and a man like me. He is the old type of unpractical artist; I am the literary man of 1882. He won't make concessions, or rather, he can't make them; he can't supply the market. I--well, you may say that at present, I do nothing; but that's a great mistake, I am learning my business. Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets; when one kind of goods begins to go off slackly, he is ready with something new and appetising. He knows perfectly all the possible sources of income. Whatever he has to sell, he'll get payment for it from all sorts of various quarters; none of your unpractical selling for a lump sum to a middleman who will make six distinct profits.

في بدء توقيفي كانت لدي أفكار رجل حر من ذلك أن الرغبة كانت تأخذني في أكون على شاطئ ...وبعد ذلك لم تعد لي سوى افكار سجين كنت انتظر النزهة اليومية أو زيارة المحامي

If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to-- Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?"They had reached the end of the gallery, and with tears of shame she ran off to her own room.