Epstein ii
Mordecai Richler, the Canadian novelist, once said that he divided his life between the time before he decided to become a writer and the time after—and the time before was better. What I believe Richler meant was that once one determines to write, one no longer confronts experience directly; it becomes “copy,” recyclable in stories, articles, essays, poems. True, nothing in a skilled writer’s life is wasted. But there is something mildly—and sometimes more than mildly—gruesome about collecting experience for one’s work the way a certain kind of person collects grievances. I, for one, would never make the mistake my wife did of marrying a writer.
Joseph Epstein, Writing on the Brain.
[x]#504 fan donderdag 22 april 2004 @ 00:24:59
