is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day?
[…] getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. its getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. thats how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and go along for the ride. but if you can do that – well, lucky you.
[…]
writing turns you into somebody who’s always wrong. the illusion that you may get it right somedayis the perversity that draws you on. what else could?
[…]
yes, alone we are, deeply alone, and always, in store for us, a layer of loneliness even deeper. there is nothing we can do to dispose of that. no, loneliness shouldn’t surprise us, as astoninshing to experience as it may be. you can try turning yourself inside out, but all you are then is inside out and lonely instead of inside in and lonely.
philip roth: american pastoral – isbn 0-09-977181-0
[my mum has given this book to me years ago. so of course, i never read it. but its quite good. even if the writing style is not at all my piece o cake. its the story of what having an understanding and supportive father can do to certain intelligent children.]