22 April 2013

Sebald extract


If he nevertheless persevered with writing, then only, as Jean Starobinski notes, in order to hasten the moment when the pen would fall from his hand and the essential things would be said in the silent embrace of reconciliation and return. Less heroically, but certainly no less correctly, one could also see writing as a continually self-perpetuating compulsive act, evidence that, of all individuals afflicted by the disease of thought, the writer is perhaps the most incurable.

- Max Sebald on Jean-Jacques Rousseau

2 comments:

  1. Still have only read his poetry, something that when time allows I want to do something about

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  2. Plenty of time, Gary. And copies are always around, I hope.

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