Preface
Christmas 2011

When a work is composed within a narrow span of time,
a single preface will suffice to give its author an
opportunity to interpret his efforts.
But if a work encompasses a longer period,
perhaps a matter of years,
possibly the substantial portion of a lifespan,
or perhaps even the entire majority of the author's life,
then a single preface can hardly be expected to
reflect the broad spectrum of the author's relevant experience.
Under such circumstances,
an initial preface requires 
from time to time
to be replaced with one more up to date,
and each new preface, save the last,
serves merely as a temporary introduction
which will require to be replaced as the work proceeds.
Later prefaces will complement the earlier ones;
but will never serve wholly to replace them.
Each final preface must then serve also
to introduce the temporary ones it has superseded.

Heretofore I had overlooked the circumstance
that inasmuch the collection on this Internet server
will extend from what I wrote as an adolescent
to what has recently been composed by an old man,
a preface to each phase of the writing will be appropriate.
Accordingly I have forfeited the opportunity for
a timely composition of successive prefaces. 
Arguably I might make up for the omissions
by retroactive compositions.
These would fill the void in only a very superficial manner,
because the writing which is most meaningful,
and which is in fact most valuable
relinquishes any claim
to recapitulate the reality of the past.
The reality of the past is inaccessible to me.
My writing presumes to be a mirror image of present reality
and requires the mirror to be positioned squarely in the present.
The reality of times past is an empty fiction.
It is impossible for me to imagine,
or to reconstruct how I thought 
or might have thought
one or five or twenty or fifty years ago.
Makes me appear ridiculous even to try.

There is a comparable deadline for corrections.
With writing as with plastering or cementing
the timespan in which the product remains fluid and plastic
and amenable to reformation is limited.
This is the limited opportunity
to correct or improve what has been composed.
Once the substance has hardened,
it is too late,
and then improvements are possible
only with the destruction of what has been finished.
Under these circumstances
what has purportedly been corrected
is of entirely different character,
effectively replacing the original
which it has irrevocably destroyed.
Accordingly, if I am determined
to incorporate the original creation,
however imperfect it might be,
into the current presentation,
I have no choice but to respect and preserve the original
(das Alte) with all its imperfections.
The conclusive validity of the text would then derive
not from its logical or stylistic perfection
but from the genuineness of its origins.

Time and again I discover to my surprise
the changes that have taken place
over the couse of my life
in my understanding of the quality of literary products.
As a student I was convinced
the classical literature
with its emblem of apparent permanence
bore this distiction
on the ground of objective characteristics of style and content.
This conviction was then confirmed by my teachers,
especially by those who permitted themselves
judgments about my experiences
and about the style in which I expressed them, 
and on the basis of this judgment
presumed to impose on me
their view of the world and
their style of writing.
Innocent and obedient student that I was,
I failed to defend myself.
The good faith effort to comply with alien directives
to assume an inapporpriate manner of thinking and writing,
crippled the writing of my youth
and handicapped my inventiveness 
and imagination for years.

The final escape from these impediments
occurred only when I was about 60 years old. 
Prior to that I had assumed
it was the inadequcy of my ideas and their expression
which was responsible for their rejection.
I presumed to recognize my shortcomings;
I thought I had no choice
but to reconcile myself
with the inferiority of my work.
Only after I had begun writing
the first chapter of my novel Die Andere,
did I begin to see the light.
I recognized, or I thought I recognized
that the presumed excellence of texts,
of works of literature,
could not in any way
be objectively grounded (begruendet)
but was on the contrary in great measure
a matter of social-political appearance,
and not necessarily
a reflection of the quality of the product.
From the understanding (hermeneutic)
of the Bible as Holy Scripture,
I concluded that its sanctity did not derive
from the characteristics of the books, chapters, verses or words
of which it was constituted,
but that this sanctity,
this special excellence,
was largely consequence and expression of faith.
If the excellence of the Bible
derived from the faith
with which the reader felt constrained
to believe in its perfection;
if the benefit, the blessing which it conferred
was not the consequence of the characteristic of the text
but of the faith with which it was read,
then similar circumstances might determine
the significance of profane, worldly texts, as well,
mine not excepted.
The assumption that writings,
sacred or profane,
are read and cherished
because they are uniquely true or good or excellent,
seems to me
an ominous illusion.
A text is canonical in consequence of a certain charisma
which derives from appearence, content, style, and
from indeterminate undefined characteristics of its author,
and derives from the fact and manner of its success,
derives from the circumstance that it exists, and from chance.