Dear Georgette,

Thank you for your letter, and especially for your
descriptions of the dreams in which Margrit appeared.
Following our long telephone conversation, I thought
frequently about your immediate problem - the defamation
that so troubled you, I thought also about your
relationship to Margrit and I asked myself how your life
and your parents' was affected by my sister.  I understand
well enough that such queries have no answers, and
given how few the "facts"  of which I have knowledge,
I am not sure I am even qualified to ask the question.
If I  haven't made specific requests for details, that's
because I understand the recapitulation of the past to
be a potential source of more unhappiness. Nonetheless,
I ask you to consider writing about your experiences with
Margrit, not as fiction, but a blend of biography and
autobiography. If you wrote such a book, you would have
at least one interested reader.  The composition might
also prove rewarding to you in itself.

I'm sorry that Helmut's reaction to Anschluss was a
disappointment. I'm not surprised. I've probably recounted
to you that when he read my first novel many years ago,
Helmut was very critical.  I have never asked him to read
anything else that I have written, and to my knowledge he
hasn't looked at any of the texts I've published on the
Internet. I can have no opinion about the validity of his
editorial judgment. Subjectively, obviously, our literary
preferences diverge. Nonetheless we consider each other the
best of friends. I like Helmut very much. I'm sorry for him,
but not for myself, that he doesn't believe my work to be
suitable for publication.

It may be the acme of sour grapes self-deception, that I
consider success in the literary marketplace a political
phenomenon. I seek publication of my own writing no more
than I run for public office. It may seem facetious even
to mention that I would accept a position in public life
where I could exercise my intelligence and my judgment
"for the public good".  But I will not ask for such an
office, I will not run for election, and I will certainly
not alter any opinion or judgment to curry favor with an
individual or with the public.

Similarly, I won't try to change the style or the content
of my writing to obtain the endorsement of a publisher.
If publication were important to me, I would try to secure
it on my own. Publishing my books, becoming "famous" would
turn into another do-it-yourself project. I would be in
good company. Various authors who subsequently became
prominent began by promoting themselves. Most such attempts
of course are failures, and I have no reason to assume that
mine would be successful.  However I wouldn't mind trying.

It's in consequence of my priorities, that I don't promote
my own writing. My days are numbered. Publication wouldn't
transform a mediocre product into a masterpiece.  I prefer
to spend myself in attempts to write texts that are worthwhile,
rather than to secure public endorsement of the admittedly
imperfect pages already written, - with which I am never fully
satisfied. Please interpret these sentences as a confession
of what I've been up to; by no means a prescription. Nothing
is further from my intention than asking you to accept for
yourself my own relationship to literature.

Given the fervor with which my sister tried to insinuate
herself into your father's life and into yours, I believe that
some manner of communication between us is inescapable, 
even if that communication turns out to be inapparent, -
in Rilke's words: Die ununterbrochene Nachricht, die 
aus Stille sich bildet.

Jochen