#156

“We are speaking here of literature as spiritual prostitution; prostitution because, to write it, one must serve. One must ingratiate oneself, pay court, display oneself, show off one's stylistic muscles, make confession, confide in the reader, render unto him what one holds most dear, compete for his attention, keep alive his interest – in a word, one has to suck up to, wheedle, and wait upon, one has to sell oneself” (id, 114).

#155

“Literature always is parasitic on the mind of the reader. Love, a tree, a park, a sigh, an earache – the reader understands, because the reader has experienced it. It is possible, of course, with a book to rearrange the furniture inside a reader's head, but only to the extent that there is some furniture there already, before the reading” (id, 71).

#154

“The writing of a novel is a from of the loss of creative liberty... In turn, the reviewing of books is a servitude still less noble. Of the writer one can at least say that he enslaved himself – by the theme selected. The critic is in a worse position: as the convict is chained to his wheelbarrow, so the reviewer is chained to the work reviewed. The writer looses his freedom in his ow book, the critic in another's” (Lem, 1999: 3).

LEM, Stanislaw (1999). A Perfect Vacuum. Translation by Michael Kandel. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.