the art of bitter tastes

Greenwich Village, after the war. Anatole Broyard ran a second-hand bookstore. I’m enjoying his memoir, Kafka Was the Rage. It’s more about sex than books*, but I’ll quote a bit about the books.

“But above all, at any cost, I must get Kafka. Kafka was as popular in the Village at that time as Dickens had been in Victorian London. But his books were very difficult to find–they must have been printed in very small editions–and people would rush in wild-eyed, almost foaming at the mouth, willing to pay anything for Kafka.

Literary criticism was enjoying a vogue. As Randall Jarrell said, some people consulted their favorite critic about the conduct of their lives as they had once consulted their clergymen. The war had left a bitter taste, and literary criticism is the art of bitter tastes.” (p 31)

*Actually the sex parts are more about soul than sex. Broyard has an utterly lovely, patiently delirious way of describing the odd relationship he had with Sheri Donatti. He’s also really good at suspense. At times I can hardly wait to find out what’s going to happen next. I can hardly wait to finish the book.

I also find it really charming that he felt like such an unsophisticated youngster in New York, even with a name like Anatole Broyard.