Novel Notes

A masterpiece of Jerom’s ironic prose. Writing is getting into fashion—and what true gentleman would refuse to try his hand?!
“Books have their place in the world, but they are not the purpose of existence. Books ought to stand side by side with a steak and roast lamb, the smell of the sea, the touch of a hand, a memory of past hopes, and all the other ingredients of the total of our seventy years. We talk about books as if they were voices of life itself, when in fact they are only its faint echo.”
“— Actually, there exists only one story,” Jeffson went on after a long silence—rather voicing his own thoughts than speaking to me. “We sit at our desks and think and think and write and write, but the story is always the same. People told it, and people listened to it many years ago. We tell it to one another today and will tell it to one another a thousand years from now. And the story is this: ‘Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman, and the woman loved the man.’ A small-time critic will shout that it’s old and demand something newer. He thinks, like children do, that in our world there might still be something new.”
“There is one magical fairy tale. I read it many, many years ago, but it still keeps its charm for me. It is a story about how one little boy once climbed up a rainbow and at the very end of it, beyond the clouds, saw a wonderful city. Its houses were golden, and its streets were silver, and everything was lit by a light like the one that at dawn illuminates a world that is still asleep. In that city there were palaces so beautiful that in their mere contemplation the satisfaction of all wishes was hidden; temples so majestic that it was enough to kneel there to be cleansed of sins. The men of that marvelous city were strong and kind, and the women were as beautiful as a young man’s dreams. And the name of this city was ‘The City of Unsung Deeds of Mankind.’”