As
an undergraduate at Cornell I was a chemistry major because my
brother was a big-shot chemist. Critics feel that a person cannot be
a serious artist and also have had a technical education, which I
had. I know that customarily English departments in universities,
without knowing what they’re doing, teach dread of the engineering
department, the physics department, and the chemistry department. And
this fear, I think, is carried over into criticism. Most of our
critics are products of English departments and are very suspicious
of anyone who takes an interest in technology. So, anyway, I was a
chemistry major, but I’m always winding up as a teacher in English
departments, so I’ve brought scientific thinking to literature.
There’s been very little gratitude for this.
Kurt
says he studied Chemistry because his brother was already a big-shot
chemist. This is a big deal. I don´t know whether eldest brothers
are aware of their responsibility
when they choose a degree. I am not sure if they know how they can
influence on
their siblings. How many soft, but genuine vocations have been
destroyed by the
big brothers influence?
Regarding
the fear mentioned in the text, we have said several times that this
dread is reciprocal between scientists and men of letters and that we
try to make this dread as soft as possible. It is been accepted that
the man of letters thinks all
scientists are brutes and, on the other hand, scientists think men of
letters are damsels. This is unbearable.
With
this text we want to express our gratitude to Kurt Vonnegut for
the incorporation of the
scientific thought to literature, even if we don´t believe in this
thought or scientific method so much.
(looking
at Vonnegut’s picture, he looks like Fogwill, the way that Cortazar
believed that Baudelaire and Poe were actually the same person)
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