Ann Patchett
I really enjoy reading Ann Patchett's books, and her writing about books and the like. This quote set me off on a wander in my mind about the links (if any) between reading fiction and creativity. This came about because of her mention here about imagining, which I think is key to creativity.
Linking imagination to empathy is something I have always believed about fiction; yet her last two thoughts are less embedded in my understanding. I hadn't given much thought to the value of following complex story lines - which of course is a good work out for the brain. Reading, understanding, and holding complexity is such a different function to scanning and flitting.
Her final point I quite adore. Staying within the world of a novel allows us to be both quiet and alone.
For somebody like me, these two elements are critical to my wellbeing; even tho I never actually feel alone when I am reading a book.
My kind of place...quiet and alone.
interesting to note that I have been reading more fiction of late ... and just picked up an Ann Patchett's Commonwealth: A Novel to take on our trip to the beach ... I'm looking forward to quiet and alone time every bit as much as family time
ReplyDeleteI've not heard of Ann Patchett but after these last two quotes you have shared I am going to look out her books. I also need too be quiet and alone, have since childhood, and it's taken me years for my family to understand it's a need that comes from within, as necessary to me as breathing, and has nothing to do with them. I remember the first time I read Wordsworth's lines "The world is too much with me, late and soon" - I understood and felt them immediately and it's still a phrase that comes to mind regularly.
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