"If you dislike existence then death is your release. You can call this nihilism, if you like."
"Yes, American-style -- without the abyss," said Ravelstein. "But the Jews feel that the world was created for each and every one of us, and when you destroy a human life you destroy an entire world -- the world as it existed for that person."
All at once Ravelstein was annoyed with me... As if I would threaten to destroy a world -- I who lived to see the phenomena, who believe that the heart of things is shown in the surface of things. I always said -- in answering Ravelstein's question "What do you imagine death will be like?" -- "The pictures will stop." Meaning, again, that in the surface of things you saw the heart of things.
Ravelstein, page 156.
So said the novelist. And now he's gone. An entire world is lost.
UPDATE: The NYT has a nice big obit. I noticed the Wisconsin connection:
In 1933 he began college at the University of Chicago, but two years later transferred to Northwestern, because it was cheaper. He had hoped to study literature but was put off by what he saw as the tweedy anti-Semitism of the English department, and graduated in 1937 with honors in anthropology and sociology, subjects that were later to instill his novels. But he was still obsessed by fiction. While doing graduate work in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, he found that "every time I worked on my thesis, it turned out to be a story." He added: "I sometimes think the Depression was a great help. It was no use studying for any other profession."
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