certain tricky questions arise from time to time in literary circles. No one knows who first asked them, and they of- ten seem a pointless game. For instance: Would you, as a writer, continue to write if you ended up on an uninhabited island and it seemed that no one would ever read your work? Many writers answer: Yes, of course I would, I don't need a reader, I'm my own reader, I'm incapable of not writing, I am my own source of inspiration, no one should come between me and God, and so forth....