gass

In my writerly guise my pages will be as shocking as my present prehistoric carapace. I want to publish principally to prove to my father I can be a success at something. But not in my role, as a writer, rather in my role as a son. Perhaps I would prefer my scribblings to stay unseen and my bound and printed sheets to remain unread, even though I have carefully placed a copy of my first book on the nightstand next to my father's bed. I want his approval so I can scorn it. I want his approval though my need makes me ashamed. I depend upon his animosity, for it defines me, gives me edges, just as the man who cuts out your silhouette from a sheet of black paper does and, for the sum of loose change, gives you the profile of a piece of land. My movements are awkward, my body cumbersome, my desires mixed. I can debate the situation with my head, but however it goes — approval or blame — I remain a failure. (86)

...

Yes, I must be a different species. I dislike everything my family does. I cannot eat what they eat; I cannot abide their games; the noises of their life are like the scratch of chalk; and they move through my room to other rooms like trains through a station. I only come out at ngiht when the card game is conceded, the last door closed, my father's lungs cough, and the parent bedsprings sigh. I come out into the conmforting emptiness of silence, where I may lead my counterclockwise life. (86)

...

My problem, if I were to put it simply, is the family, the dynamics of the family, the reach of relations, the forced feeding of custom and belief, the close embrace of the tribe, the shrinking circle that begins the words "obey" and "obligation" and concludes every "no" that issues from my father's mouth to sum me up as a zero. The family is formed by a system of functions: the father's, to rule and provide, direct and protect, beget and mold; the mother's, to cherish and succor, to bear and care; the child's, to obey and prepare, to mate and become mother or father in another such system, perpetuating the name, supplying the tribe with more tribesman, adding to its coffers, filling with good repute each grave. (87)

Gass, William H. "Half a Man, Half a Metaphor: The Unknown Kafka." Harper's Magazine (August 2006): 85-94.

eno

I am reminded of a favorite uncle. He gave me a dictionary, which I mistook as the long, sad, confusing story of everything. But he taught me many things about many things. For example, we speak to keep the wolf of loneliness at bay. Or, for example, while crashing your car, always steer into the direction of the skid. But now theory must be put into practice, and the stacks of books are pushed aside, as we careen heart-first and bookless into the blackening night. (18)

Eno, Will. "Darkness at Seven." Harper's Magazine 312 (June 2006): 15-19.

A reprinting of the opening scene of Tragedy: a tragedy.