The Ideal Reader

I review my notes and smile at my irritations. The truth is that I consider myself, modesty aside, the ideal reader. When I open a book, the last thing I want is to get irritated with the author. I give him total freedom to say whatever he wants, to create from the absurd to the ridiculous, to break all moral barriers and more as he feels he must do in order to express what he wants. What I do not have—and I am proud of this—is a guidebook for demanding it from whoever I read. I consciously choose readings that appear contrary to what I seem to think. And yet, even with this almost limitless openness, I always end up finding someone who gets on my nerves…