Look at that by - (read ebook pdf .txt) 📖

“Lovely. How then should it be read? Or rather, how would you like to be read, Mr Panourgias?”

“Can we leave the Mr Panourgias aside for a bit? It’s starting to get on my nerves, you know, like when people offer their seat up for me on the bus. Because, I am neither a Mister, nor Panourgias. Now, in regards to how I want to be read. The only thing I ask is not to be skipped. Because in my work there is no such thing as lettuce-leaf phrases that only go on the plate for decoration and main-course phrases. They all bear the same weight. My text is isobaric, do you understand? And I would add, isotropic, isotopic and isomorphic.”

“Do you not skip when reading?”

“Certainly, but only weather-report phrases or the so-called fine print which even their own writer could not possibly be naïve enough to believe that they would be read.

“That’s sufficiently clear, let us move on. Look at that is its title. Could you please explain this a bit more?

“There is a triple meaning to it. First off, it’s what it made me say it, but also an invitation for the reader to literally have a look at the novel, plus the hope that by doing so it will extract, metaphorically, from him a…”

+ “even though, if you ask me, Take it would be a better choice.”

Simos Panopoulos - Look at that

160

“Look at that!”

“Not necessarily. That’s not the issue, is it? I’d be happy with a ‘Lookie here!’ even. Or a ‘That’s it !’ If it manages to steal away about ten of these, then it’s mission complete.”

“The book or the reader?”

“Both. As many as it takes to tango.”

“Yes, but how is that supposed to happen when for all intents and purposes there is nothing new you convey in the art of literature?”

“But that’s exactly the point. If I were to do so, the reader would glance at this new thing and never look at it again. It would be like museum exhibits whose worth is exhausted by their innovation.”

“Wherein is your originality, despite all of that?”

“If it is somewhere, it is in the avoidance of anything which, in other books, had always caused me to break out in hives.”

“Like?”

“All that would make you think ‘Come on now, this doesn’t even happen in the movies.’”

Also add there, “preach, brother, preach!”

How do you not convey anything? The achievement alone of not writing about the crisis, and simultaneously, doing away with, at least a dozen people – what about that?