[Malignd]

<<What Coetzee will not do is make himself available
for interview. He belongs to that small band of heroic
writers who - without being as reclusive as Pynchon or
Salinger - have declined to make themselves available
for 
publicity purposes.>>

I'm a fan of Beckett and I respect his desire for
privacy.  He also risked his life in the French
Resistance, something of which he rarely spoke, so his
political bona fides is beyond dispute.  But I don't
see such refusal to speak publically, in and of
itself, as heroic or even, necessarily, admirable.

Writers, particularly writers of the stature of those
named in this note, can make themselves known for many
reasons other than publicity.  Gunter Grass, Vaclav
Havel, Harold Pinter, Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag,
David Hare, Garcia-Marquez, Vargos-Llosa--these are
shameless publicity mongers? 

Beckett yes, but it's hard to see Salinger--or
Pynchon, for that matter--as heroic in this company.



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