问答题 On the whole, books are less limited than ourselves. Often they sit on the shelves absorbing dust long after the writer has turned into a handful of dust—and it is precisely the appetite for this posthumous dimension that sets one's pen in motion. So as we toss and turn these rectangular objects in our hands we won't be terribly amiss if we surmise that we fondle, as it were, the urns with our returning ashes. After all, what goes into writing a book is, ultimately, a man's only life. Whoever said that to philosophize is an exercise in dying was right in more ways than one, for by writing a book nobody gets younger. Nor does one become any younger by reading one. Since this is so, our natural preference should be for good books. The paradox, however, lies in the fact that in literature "good" is defined by its distinction from "bad." What's more, to write a good book, a writer must read a great deal of pulp—otherwise he won't be able to develop the necessary criteria. That's what may constitute bad literature's best defense at the Last Judgment. Since we are all moribund, and since reading books is time-consuming, we must devise a system that allows us a semblance of economy. Of course, there is no denying the pleasure of holding up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; but in the end, we read not for reading's sake hut to learn. Hence the need for the works that brings the human predicament into its sharpest possible focus. Hence, too, the need for some compass in the ocean of available printed matter.