You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

or you are the only animal,

who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hi, this is Michael Silverblad, and welcome to Bookworm.

When I spoke to Harold Brotke in the studio several weeks ago,

his new book, The Runaway Saul, was about to be released.

He was nervous about reviews and critics,

and we talked about the kind of books you need to read twice.

And listeners, you may want to grab a pencil

because before we're through, we make a list

of the really bad boys and girls of 20th century modernism. Anyway, we began with the critics.

I have to understand I'm not myself. I mean, I'm waiting for the reviews, and in part I don't

care about the reviews. But my life depends on them. I mean, you know, the next five or six years of my life.

And it would be nice to know a little bit about what was going to happen to the book.

I mean, I did wait too long to publish it. Anyway, I was really addressing, without being honest with you,

I was really addressing the issue of the second reading. I've always felt this, and I had no way

of putting it into words, and John Hollander, who is this very odd intellectual, I mean, some

of his work is so good, and some of his work just drives me up the wall. It seems

me so bad. He's got a poem about nonsense, which has more meaning in it than his poem was on

meaning. You've got a short book on Echo, on Echo, which is quite remarkable. And if you

write, it's very useful. He also has a piece on second readings

...