“A writer is a world trapped in a person.”
Victor Hugo
It's kind of about books I guess when you think about writers...
This is a big thought and I pondered and pondered it to make sure I could understand what I thought it really meant. I think it is a lovely description of the expansiveness of a writer of fiction in particular; but possibly also of non-fiction, in terms of how big their creativity can be.
The notion that a whole world, imagined, created, described and brought to life (think JK Rowling and Tolkien) exists within a person - that a writer is that whole world inside one person. Delightful and possibly so very true!
Each time a writer either creates a world or describes a world for us, it is like that world exists within them. The sense of being trapped seems to be as much about the point of release - the time when the world has to be brought to life in the outer real world; the publication point. Or the telling time, when I think about it more - lots of parents are great at telling stories to their children that are whole lands and characters and worlds created in their heads.
Whole worlds lie within...
Victor Hugo
It's kind of about books I guess when you think about writers...
This is a big thought and I pondered and pondered it to make sure I could understand what I thought it really meant. I think it is a lovely description of the expansiveness of a writer of fiction in particular; but possibly also of non-fiction, in terms of how big their creativity can be.
The notion that a whole world, imagined, created, described and brought to life (think JK Rowling and Tolkien) exists within a person - that a writer is that whole world inside one person. Delightful and possibly so very true!
Each time a writer either creates a world or describes a world for us, it is like that world exists within them. The sense of being trapped seems to be as much about the point of release - the time when the world has to be brought to life in the outer real world; the publication point. Or the telling time, when I think about it more - lots of parents are great at telling stories to their children that are whole lands and characters and worlds created in their heads.
Whole worlds lie within...
ReplyDeletejust read this last night & feel that it fits in-
"... Just as the artist's imagination "has a gift" that brings the work to life, so in the realized gifts of the gifted the spirit of the group "has a gift." These creations are not "merely" symbolic, they do not "stand for" the larger self; they are its necessary embodiment, a language without which it would have no life at all."
from "The Gift- Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World" by Lewis Hyde (p.199)
Isn't that intriguing Mo? I have the book and dip into it occasionally - seems like I need to spend more time with it! We all have gifts, and the gifts we share are almost necessary...
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