Okay, I admit it, I stole this quote from Fred Zackel's post on Rara-Avis this morning, but hey it's a great way of looking at what we read and write. But I've got to say that I'm still not tossing my Georgette Heyer's. A girl has to have a little laughter and romance in her reading once in a while!
"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? ... But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. That is my belief." (Franz Kafka to Oskar Pollak, January 27, 1904)
9 comments:
Too right, Sandra. Maybe Kafka wanted to be miserable all the time, maybe that entertained him. And books that 'wound and stab us' are necessary. But like you, I'm not giving up my Georgette Heyer books. Sometimes I need a little something to bind up those wounds and she does a right nice job of it.
Yes, she does, Naomi! A steady diet of stabbing books and the whole world would be too depressing to live in. I get depressed if I watch too many episodes of SVU on TV. A good mix of reading helps keeps us sane.
I think books should do all kinds of things for us. Take an axe to our frozen seas is one, but not the only one.
I agree, Charles, my reading is all over the place, but the books and stories that stay with me are the ones that touch me in some way. It doesn't have to be a tidal wave of disaster, a good belly laugh at our human foibles is enough to satisfy.
I would hate to limit my reading to any one kind of book. Some days I'll take that stab in the heart but other times I'll take my comfort where I can find it.
Yes,there are a lot of books out there that are like comfort food for the soul, Patti. Drowning yourself in all that sorrow day in and day out isn't good you.
Sandra, you can steal anything I quote any time you wish. Oh, and, ah, in tomorrow's rara-avis, I'll show off a very cynical way to use that quote to get you through any public speaking engagement.
:) Which is exactly why you used the quote on Sunday, Fred.
Curses! Foiled again! But you can still steal from me whenever you wish.
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