So, as I've done previously, I am posting here a tiny nugget of wisdom from a novel I'm reading. As is usually the case with Philip Roth, there are too many little gems to keep track of them all but, here are two that I think warrant attention from his novel, "The Counterlife"
Page 127, where the main character, Nathan Zuckerman, explains how he can write about things without having experienced them or wanting to experience them:
"...imagining violence and the release of the brute, imagining the individuals engaged in it, doesn't necessitate embracing it. There's no retreat or hypocrisy in a writer who doesn't go out and do what he may have thought about doing...the only retreat is retreating from what you know."
Similarly, a few pages later, page 131, this sentiment is somewhat subtley expouded on when Zuckerman says:
"...certainly a life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your way."
Both of these sections are ones that made me stop and think and then think some more which is why I've put them here so that I won't foret. These are the nuggets of truth that I don't want to rely on my page-folding for. They deserve their own blog entries of course. Ah, the wonders of the digital age.
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