Mike Young—
“I get so very tired of having to talk about literature. I didn’t begin writing because I wanted to sit in a room and discuss the subjectivity in Wordsworth and Ashbery; I began writing because I had made friends with the dead: they had written to me, in their books, about life on earth and I wanted to write back and say yes, house, bridge, river, hair, no, maybe, never, forever.” — Mary Ruefle (via Amber Sparks)
i love this
[…] I get so very tired of having to talk about literature. I didn’t begin writing because I wanted to sit in a room and discuss the subjectivity in Wordsworth and Ashbery; I began writing because I had made friends with the dead: they had written to me, in their books, about life on earth and I wanted to write back and say yes, house, bridge, river, hair, no, maybe, never, forever. — Mary Ruefle (via Amber Sparks) (I saw it on HTML Giant) […]
Then don’t go in that room.
THIS IS GREAT
YES THOSE DAMN DEAD PEOPLE ZZZIPP JUST WANTS TO TELL THEM WHERE THE HOUSE IS SO THEY CAN CLEAN THE CARPETS, RID PETS OF LICE, ETC
COMPLETELY
I love saying those last things, too! Especially “hair.”
I love listening to the dead, too.
And I doubt it’s fair entirely to mock Ruefle for these few sentences. But I think it’s fair to turn them over a bit.
“Tired of” conversation partners who engage directly with and might challenge points of view, in favor of conversations with the dead?
Or the implication that “talk[ing] about literature” might hinder writing “yes, house, bridge, river, hair, maybe, never, forever”?
That’s deep.
Mary Ruefle