parallels

"How do we know if a book is holy? If it defiles the hands." The sacrality of texts, which determines their canonical status in the Talmud, is gauged by the extent to which they violate the one who comes into contact with them. A book is sacred only if it defiles you. Seek out those books that leave you ravaged. (Scribbler)


I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy? Good lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. That is my belief. (Kafka)