I am ashamed to send ‘The Hurdy-Gurdy’ to you. It is the first stage of my journey, which, though sincere, still feels constricted because of a search for technique and form, and, perhaps, I have searched in the wrong places. Dissatisfaction with this form has prompted me to deny form altogether, but here I suffer from shortcomings of this approach, from a lack of that concise ‘implication’ which makes one try to interpret a book and ask it for a new half-existing possibility. That is what is so wonderful about new challenges. Take you, for example — in the gaps between your writings, the essence that has no name in any human language, the essence to which your new words correspond, is ready to reveal itself. To reveal what feelings it evokes, without immediately imposing a narrow meaning to them — is it not so?

This book cannot be described as ‘it is’, more like ‘it is im Werden’” (German for “becoming”), “…it is as if a teenage girl has appeared on the stage for the first time — a talented girl… With pointed elbows and red hands, choking with laughter; she will adjust her stocking without even noticing. She cannot walk around the stage. Suddenly for no apparent reason she begins speaking in a man’s voice and crosses her legs (which she adopted from her cousin)”, and “it is a very sweet book.