How do Salamanders die?

Catherine Rey

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    No, writers do not think. You are surely disappointed, and you will raise the objection that they are capable of writing Milan Kundera's Testaments Betrayed, Nathalie Sarrault's The Age of Suspicion and Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. And yet, it's in their novels all the same and in the final count that novelists excel. If I have any advice to give to a beginner it is this: do not think too much. That makes for bad novels. By the same token, you must read, read extensively, read other authors, be curious about their work and respect it (behind the finest texts there is real suffering), the classics as much the moderns, from Marcus Aurelius to Michel Houellebecq, from Erasmus to Elfriede Jelinek, and write, write a great deal, scribble and scribble some more, and throwaway much of it too, in order to give birth to the marvel of a hitherto unknown thought that surges out of its own self thanks to that unique act, for thought is neither external to nor anterior to the text, but consubstantial with the act of writing. Writers do not think, they allow themselves to be borne along.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)51-59
    Number of pages9
    JournalHEAT
    Volume9
    Issue number9
    Publication statusPublished - 2005

    Keywords

    • authors
    • writing

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