How ‘Herzog’ clears the fog

I saw this story on NPR this morning and stashed it away to read later, after I’d attended to my own literary chores.

When I circled back on it, the parallels made me smile.

In the piece, author Jeffrey Eugenides writes that his sure-fire cure for writer’s block is to open up Saul Bellow’s Herzog and read a random page or paragraph:

It always works. Right away I’m restored to full alertness and clarity. Style, in literature, has gone out of style. People think it’s just ornament. But it’s not: The