[William Styron] has hazarded a novel, Sophie's Choice, which attempts to defy the notion (George Steiner) that "in the presence of certain realities art is trivial or impertinent." It is an extraordinary work, destined, I would dare forecast, to become a major landmark in this debate around the morbid genre which has become known as Holocaust Literature. Not that Sophie's Choice is morbid; even though the novel's atmosphere hangs over me and I feel it will haunt for a long time, yet it is often hilarious! But so moved, disturbed and grateful was I for it that in self-protection against duplicity I want to sort out and dwell upon not the book's virtues but its equivocalities, for some of its aspects are questionable. Problems arise. The holocaust is such an emotional quagmire, I want my feelings to earn their trust! (p. 48)
[Here is my major] problem with Sophie, for it throws me upon my own work as a writer who deals mainly in firsthand experience. The imaginative recreation of reality either illuminates intellect or deepens feeling or sharpens sensibilities, or all three. The question then becomes not: Are there certain realities which art trivialises, or which memory is forced to distort; but—are there certain realities which it is impossible for art to recreate adequately enough to enable us to exercise our emotions, sensibilities and intellect trustworthily?
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