“Those are just rungs, you poor people, rungs in the pecking order; I scaled them carefully, on my guard, one at a time, onwards towards the top. Push down whoever is beneath you, lick the heels of whoever is above, lick until he stumbles, then see him down, and you can continue one rung further up. Oh, the art of it!”
This is from “The Great Suitcase”, the second story published in B O D Y by Macedonian writer Ivan Dodovski translated by Will Firth. And while it could be about virtually any career these happen to be the words of a literary critic, someone who “could take your average literary flake, for instance, and make him a ‘first-class writer’. I could bury others overnight, without a trace, without writing a single word.” Man, I wish I could do that! Not that I’d want to end up like this guy . . . but still.
Read more Saturday European Fiction
Photo – Kurt Cobain’s suitcase, EMP Museum by Kelly/wikimedia commons (not that Kurt Cobain has anything to do with this story. It’s just the suitcase connection).
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