There is no field where freedom is of greater importance than in art” (Singer in Burgin 57). Since I believe that literature is basically entertaining I don’t believe in forced entertainment. “I will tell you I don’t believe in forced readings, where people are forced by professors or they force themselves to read. In my case I have to make an effort to read them and I don’t think that fiction is good when you have to make an effort” (Singer in Burgin 57).
I feel in Kafka, as I said, a great power, but the truth is that the literary idols of this generation are not my idols – neither Kafka nor Joyce. In speaking of the works of Kafka and other writers whose fiction is imbued with an intellectually stimulating message better suited for essays than for works of literature, Singer critiqued the length of the novels of these writers, as well as the idolatry of the ideological writers of his generation. “I never sit down to write a novel to make a better world or to create good feelings toward the Jews or for any other purpose” (Singer in Pinsker 16).
The writer’s chief aim, Singer said in a 1969 interview, was to create something to be enjoyed by the reader. When asked during numerous interviews about the purpose of literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer, the twentieth century’s best known Yiddish writer, in most cases claimed that he believed the purpose of literature was to entertain the reader.
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