“I began to write fiction on the assumption that the true enemies of the novel were plot, character, setting and theme, and having once abandoned these familiar ways of thinking about fiction, totality of vision or structure was really all that remained.”
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―
“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”
― Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
― Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
“Then came nights when, lying awake beside my final wife, I would spend too much time putting my finger on what was wrong. I was wearing the finger out.
What was wrong was very simple.
Sometimes her life and mine fell on the same day.”
― Stories in the Worst Way
What was wrong was very simple.
Sometimes her life and mine fell on the same day.”
― Stories in the Worst Way
The Year of Reading Proust
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— last activity Mar 29, 2025 09:41AM
2013 was the year for reading—or re-reading—Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu or In Search of Lost Time for many of us. However, these th ...more
Abhinav’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Abhinav’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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