We all talk about the history of literature, but what, concretely, is the history of literature in the common memory? A patchwork of fragmentary images that, by pure chance, each of thousands of readers has stitched together for himself. Beneath the hole-ridden sky of such a vaporous, illusory memory, we are all at the mercy of blacklists, of their arbitrary, untestable verdicts, and always ready to ape their stupid elegance.
—Milan Kundera, "Blacklists, or Divertimento in Homage to Anatole France," in Encounter.
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