Isaac Bashevis Singer: The Art of Fiction (The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 2)
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Things happen that we do not understand. This holds pride of place in Isaac Bashevis Singer's work:
Share on FacebookI don't know if I should call myself a mystic, but I feel always that we are surrounded by powers, by mysterious powers, which play a great part in everything we are doing. I would say that telepathy and clairvoyance play a part in every love story. Even in business. In everything human beings are doing. For thousands of years people used to wear woolen clothes and when they took them off at night they saw sparks. I wonder what these people thought of their woolen clothes? I am sure that they ignored them and the children asked them, Mother, what are these sparks? And I am sure that the mother said, You imagine them! People must have been afraid to talk about the sparks so they would not be suspected of being sorcerers and witches. Anyhow, they were ignored, and we know now that they were not hallucinations, that they were real, and that what was behind these sparks was the same power that today drives our industry. And I say that we too in each generation see such sparks that we ignore just because they don't fit into our picture of science or knowledge. And I think that it is the writer's duty, and also pleasure and function, to bring out these sparks.
