scottcheshire:
Re Books:
Two strengthening and complimentary...
Re Books:
Two strengthening and complimentary passages, from what might appear unlike sources (but of course they are not), that I came across today while lazing on the sofa, feeling reduced by a killer cold and the weird brain-haze that comes with Sudafed:
The first comes from an essay called “Imagination and Community,” from Marilynne Robinson’s latest, When I Was a Child I Read Books (and as always the writing is so well-lit and lived in and beautiful), and the second comes from Bertrand Russell’s “1953 Speech to the Authors’ Club,” from The Collected Stories of Bertrand Russell (I had no idea Russell wrote fiction; although the title of the collection is inaccurate as it contains fiction, notes, audio transcriptions, and other ephemera. The man is/was a powerhouse.).
“So long as a writer is working to satisfy imagined expectations that are extraneous to his art as he would otherwise explore and develop it, he is deprived of the greatest reward, which is the full discovery and engagement of his own mind, his own aesthetic powers and resources. So long as a writer is working below the level of her powers, she is depriving the community of readers of a truly good book. And over time a truly good book can enrich literally millions of lives.” – Robinson
“Fiction emancipates man from the tyranny of fact and liberates the imagination. Imagination, not slavery to fact, is the source of whatever is good in human life.” – Russell
I feel better.
