they never believe the books to which they have dedicated their lives to have originated in some uncorrupted primordial form, some prelapsarian and unspoiled sublimity
on translators vs writers
This, in turn, inflames you, and you move on to cajoling, inveigling, wheedling, making use of every suasion in the synonymicon, making promises you can never fulfill
LET ME REPHRASE.
I know what I want to say, but I don’t know the words in which to say it. And this, I want to say, is the problem—a theological problem.
Let me rephrase.
As a writer, I go about my dull daily life with a book in my head. And, despite that dull daily life, let’s call my hea…
Quba isn’t a one-horse town. It’s a half-horse town. The rear half. Smelly (from car emissions, outlying factories, sewage), hideous. Besides apples, Quba’s also known for its carpets—known for its carpets whose woven wool must inevitably soak up all the smells—and while the few formal stores displ…
found themselves virtually alone high up in the rebarbative Caucasus
