Is everybody reading James Salter these days? Dirk Kurbjuweit of Der Spiegel, the voice of reason in politics, just shook his head in admiration as he talked about Salter*s work. Our dear friend Finn Canonica of Tages-Anzeiger Magazin can go on and on about how manly this writer is, how well he writes about women and the things that men and women to do each other and with each other. And Igor Levit wrote the other day in an email, it was rather early in the morning, I thought, to be reading a book (but then it might be different for me because I have kids and cannot even start to imagine to begin a day by sitting down and reading a passage like this: “There was a time, usually late in August, when summer struck the trees with dazzling power and they were rich with leaves but then became, suddenly one day, strangely still, as if in expectation and at that moment aware. They knew. Everything knew, the beetles, the frogs, the crows solemnly walking across the lawn. The sun was at its zenith and embraced the world, but it was ending, all that one loved was at risk.”), Igor wrote that he was going back to reading All That Is, the new novel by the soldier, the pilot, the jew who changed his name from Horowitz to Salter: An 88-year-old writer who commands the prose in a way that speaks to the souls of the rationalist, the hedonist, the cosmopolitan, the German, the Swiss, the, right, what? Where he comes from, Igor, I could tell you, but what would that matter? What he is I could tell you, but that is not why he is important to me. What I want to tell you instead is that I was struck by how he talked when we first met, a few months ago, how fast and friendly and full of excitement, I could say a bit like a puppy if that would not be a cliché. But he stayed with me, in the best possible way, he followed me, through reading and texting back and forth, he sent me messages – about what was going on in this country, what he thought about politics, what he thought about literature, television, life, at least on the borders of what he wrote I could gather that. His is a vibrant intelligence, and he is at odd with the way things are. Not only or not specifically in this country, Germany, at this moment in time. Not even mainly about this country, its past, its present, yet still, in a way that is the focus of what we discuss. This country. In a very pleasant way. Like a constant verbal drive-by shooting. Stray bullets everywhere. Igor does not like to stand in line, neither do I. He does not believe what he is told, neither do I. He will not do what people expect him to do, quite the contrary. So he made his first record for Sony Music and played Beethoven*s last five sonatas, something you just don*t do as a young pianist. I am glad he did it.