Reflections of a working writer and reader
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- Winged with Death Reviews
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Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book does not shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe. Franz Kafka letter to Oskar Pollak January 27, 1904
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Recent Comments
- bhupinder: Wonderfully well written, John ! Always a delight to visit y
- Warwick Paul Onyeama: This is a wonderful photograph that catches a moment in time
- somebadplankton: Sent me to the dictionary for quiffed.
- john baker: Gracias, Bhupinder.
- Bhupinder Singh: Superb, John. The last two lines are superlative.
- Catherine Isolde Eisner: In addition, doesn’t Graham's surname, Hendrick, recall th
- john baker: Thanks, Jim. Your comments and insights are always welcome.
- Jim Murdoch: A lot likeable about this. I hear comedians are often approa
- Mark Patrick Lynch: Thanks, John. It's good to see that Paul Sutherland's man
- john baker: Thanks, Mark. Good to hear from you, and to read your story
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