"Since Satyricon, many things have changed, yet everything has remained the same. We don't talk about new things, but about the same, only in a different way. And the theme of sexuality will continue to be exploited and investigated, alongside other capital-letter themes such as love, death, faith, and so on. The erotic art (by art I mean literature, film, theater, the visual arts) becomes pornography to the extent the author includes the pornographic intention, or uses the inadequate specific language, i. e. without talent. But I think we are still prisoners of an idea both dictatorial and elitist about literature, hence the indignation provoked by texts using a 'ribald' language. Normally, a writer is entitled to write about anything, in any way, provided he knows what he's doing, and he has talent and a lot of imagination. The rules of the fictional world are different from those of the real world. In the fictional world one may have sex in public gardens, drink, take drugs, murder or give a delicate sigh by the window, looking at the moon. The secret that prevents the things enumerated above from becoming pornography, TV news or soap opera is in the writer's pen, and is part of his destiny alone. Henry Miller will not be studied in high school, but this doesn't make him a lesser writer in the world history of literature, nor will The Tale of All Tales, but this doesn't mean it's not as beautiful (why not, after all?), and, in my taste, even more cleverly written than his debonair memories from childhood." Cultura, 24-30 November 2004
by Cecilia Ştefănescu
