Indubitably the vast majority of books overlap one another. Few indeed are those which give the impression of originality, either in style or in content. Rare are the unique books—less than 50, perhaps, out of the whole storehouse of literature. In one of his recent auto-biographical novels, Blaise Cendrars points out that Remy de Gourmont, because of his knowledge and awareness of this repetitive quality in books, was able to select and read all that is worthwhile in the entire realm of literature. Cendrars himself—who would suspect it?—is a prodigious reader. He reads most authors in their original tongue. Not only that, but when he likes an author he reads every last book the man has written, as well as his letters and all the books that have been written about him. In our day his case is almost unparalleled, I imagine. For, not only has he read widely and deeply, but he has himself written a great many books. All on the side, as it were. For, if he is anything, Cendrars, he is a man of action, an adventurer and explorer, a man who has known how to “waste” his time royally. He is, in a sense, the Julius Caesar of literature.
