>You can't step into the same book twice.
>___________________________________
>
>Sure you can. Every time I think I'm going to die, I re-read
>Chekhov's short stories. Because he forgives all and because they
>get better with each reading. Works like a charm.
That's what I mean. If they get better, they're not the same book. You change and the book changes. And part of your change is a result of reading and then rereading the book. It's a marvelous thing.
And you don't have to read everything, even if that were possible now. When Jean Genet agreed to travel and work with the Black Panthers one of the things that impressed them most was his reply when they asked "when can you leave?" Genet said "tomorrow."
Genet generally lived in small hotel rooms near railroad stations. One interviewer visiting him in one of those rooms remarked: "Five books, which he takes with him everywhere he goes, lay scattered on the table: poetry by Villon, Baudelaire, Mallarme, and Rimbaud, and Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. Exceptionally, the recent work by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words, was there on the table as well. Genet is no doubt the only living writer who does not possess a single copy of his own books. 'Why would I have my own books,' he said, 'they're written, it's finished.'"