"My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have"

Irwin Shaw reflects on the evolution of his beliefs and perspectives over time, suggesting that personal transformation is nuanced and often documented in subtle ways. He implies that his progression as an individual isn’t condensed into a single moment or statement, but is instead woven intricately through the fabric of his literary work. The trajectory of an author’s inner life, particularly one as prolific as Shaw, is mapped not through abrupt epiphanies but through the gradual shifting and layering of perspectives that accumulate across multiple pieces of writing.

The act of inviting readers to trace these shifts in attitude through his books acknowledges both the complexity of personal growth and the rich depth found in a writer’s oeuvre. Rather than making grand, declarative statements about how he has changed, Shaw allows the evolution to stand as an implicit record within his stories, characters, and themes. This also recognizes literature as a living document, a public diary of sorts, where growth is rarely linear or obvious, and shifts in worldview may be subtle, ambiguous, or incomplete. The attentive reader, then, becomes a detective piecing together the changing ways Shaw approaches life, morality, politics, human suffering, or love.

By stating that understanding his changed attitudes requires engaging deeply with his body of work, Shaw perhaps alludes to the inadequacy of surface-level judgments or superficial readings. Anyone truly interested in the currents of thought, feeling, and ideology that have guided him would need to pay attention over time, to context, and to the gradual metamorphosis evident from one book to the next. This attitude reveals a humility: an acceptance that change is personal, sometimes slow, and often noticeable only in retrospect. Shaw’s statement reaffirms the idea that art, especially over a long career, is a reflection of the artist’s internal journey, an open invitation to attentive readers to witness and understand that growth for themselves.