The Breast

by Philip Roth

I had been so devout a hypochondriac all my life, so alert to every change in body temperature and systematic regularity,

that the reasonable man I also was had long found it impossible to take seriously all my telltale symptoms.

Unable to follow with a text while the play is being spoken, I invariably miss the meaning of an unfamiliar word or lose my way in the convoluted syntax. Then my mind begins to wander, and when I tune in again, little makes sense for lines on end.

Despite the effort—oh, the effort, minute-by-minute this effort!—to keep my attention fixed on the plight of Shakespeare’s suffering heroes, I do continue to consider my own suffering more than can be good for me.

Enough pathos is enough, if not, generally, too much.

This is not tragedy any more than it is farce. It is only life, and I am only human.

Don’t you see, I have out-Kafkaed Kafka.”