DEATH IS A PAPER TIGER

DEATH IS A PAPER TIGER:

"For two days I am in my room. For two days with nothing, with books. She is right--I don't read them, not for years. I possess them merely, have them around like so many wives who bore me. My harem.
            But so ambitious as a young man! I want to learn everything. I want to read everything. I read Confucius, Lao Tzu, Plato, Aristotle, saints, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hume, Nietzsche. I read Shakespeare, literature. Marx and Freud. The Old and New Testaments! My eyes go bad, I can't keep a job for reading. And all I find out from so many books is this--that nothing changes. Then I stop reading. Better to drink. What is new? "

Link above to read full story. Published in Mississippi Review, 1974. Gordon Lish was editor.