Finally managed to visit Drohobych, where Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) lived, wrote, and was shot.
"I'm simply calling it The Book without epithets or qualifications, and in this sobriety there is a shade of helplessness, a silent capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental, for no word, no allusion, can adequately suggest the shiver of fear, the presentiment of a thing without a name that exceeds all our capacity to wonder. How could an accumulation of adjectives or a richness of epithets help when one is faced with that splendiferous thing? Besides, any true reader - and this story is only addressed to him - will understand me anyway when I look him straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning. A short sharp look or a light clasp of his hand will stir him into awareness, and he will blink in rapture of the brilliance of The Book. For, under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don't we secretly clasp each other's hands?"
-- From "The Book," in Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.
