If life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A good argument, like a good dialogue, is always a proof of life, but I'd much rather go and read a book.
It was my great problem to solve: how to write a book, you know. And after you write one, you have to write another to prove to yourself you can do it again.
Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years. So even if I was on the right track, I could be living in the wrong century.
As you suggested I have in the following disputed certain passages, trusting you will do me the justice either to modify the same or add a note in the new edition stating that I dispute,' etc.
Realistic novels simply pretend that the rules of their invented worlds are identical to the rules of actual life, but that's a ruse.
I decided to write books, just to prove to myself that I was still alive, if nothing else.
Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.
By definition a sequel can't be original. So you've got to figure out what worked the first time around.
I don't feel the need to prove myself by writing the next generational novel.
I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.