This book! To quote my dear friend Andrea – “oh my goodness!”
It’s been a while since I have read something (outside of the Bible) that affected me so deeply. But this book…the beauty and elegance of the author’s statements almost makes me cry. As a writer, I am affected. I am changed.
Archipelago by David Jacobsen (Excerpts of foreword by Bret Lott)
“Literature’s purpose: the reader will, if the author has been honest enough and written with enough Artistic integrity, find within the work at hand his own life.
I have written elsewhere about creative nonfiction that the form is something akin to Russian nesting dolls, one person in side another in side another. But instead of finding smaller selves inside the self, the opposite occurs: we find nested inside that smallest of selves a larger self, and a larger and side that, until we come to the whole of humanity within our own hearts.
But I believe that all of literature, not just the essay, must accomplish this. That whole of man’s estate ought to come springing forward from the page, the words, these least bit of Ink on paper, yielding for the reader a burst of self-awareness that gives that reader, through the work of the author, himself back to himself.”
—————————————–
Remember those stories? There has to be at least one story/book that has uncovered something about yourself to you. And even though the author highlights nonfiction, I have had more instances of finding some part of myself when reading fiction. “If you want facts, read nonfiction. If you want truth, read fiction.”
I have another book from my MFA classes – about poetry – that states that a poet/writer’s job is to make the reader care. If we (writers) have done that, then we have done our job. Even if it’s just one person, we have succeeded.
To you, whoever you are out there in the world, I am writing for you. Well, I’m writing for us. You and me. I’m not worried about affecting to world – just you. And I truly hope that I have succeeded. If you are changed, then so am I.
Pen in Motion 