Page:The Theme of the Joseph Novels.djvu/13

 have, the City of Man, as I should like to call it, we will need a binding and all-determining basic pathos, guiding us all the way to detailed and practical matters; we will need sympathy for it, and love. And with all this the mythical novel has something to do which was conceived in 1925 and of which I am speaking to you: it is by no means an out-of-the-way, evasive, extra-timely product, but inspired by an interest in humanity transcending the individual,—a humorous, ironically-softened,—I am tempted to say: a bashful poem of man.

Rather, it turned out that way unintentionally; for the author was far from attributing it this quality in the beginning. Once again it came to pass that a work developed a much greater aspiration than was inherent in the rather skeptical and by no means ambitious nature of the one on whom it imposed itself, and from whom it exacted efforts far beyond all plans and expectations.

To begin is always terribly difficult: until one feels oneself master of a subject; until one learns the language it speaks, and can reproduce it;—much courting and laboring, a long inner familiarization is required. But what I planned was so new and unusual, that never did I beat about the bush longer than this time. There was the need of establishing contact with a strange world, the primitive and mythical world: and to "take contact," in the poetic sense of the word, signifies something very complicated, intimate: penetration, carried to identification and self-substitution, so that something can be created which is called "style," and which is always a unique and complete amalgamation of the artist with the subject.

How much of an adventure I considered this mythical enterprise of mine, is indicated by the introduction to the [9]