Reading Was Like Eating Alone, With That

'one Hundred Years Of Solitude' Convinced Me To Drop Out Of Harvard Graduate School. The Novel Reminded Me Of Everything My Ph.d. Program Was Trying To Make Me Forget. Thank You, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I Remember, When I Was A Little Kid, I Was Good At Sports, And I Could Jump Off The High Board. And Then Puberty Hit, And Suddenly I Was Looking To Boys For Direction. I Remember That As A Great Loss.

People See Everything Through The Lens Of Their Obsessions.

If We Want To Write, It Makes Sense To Read—and To Read Like A Writer. If We Wanted To Grow Roses, We Would Want To Visit Rose Gardens And Try To See Them The Way That A Rose Gardener Would.

With This Recitation Of Paraphernalia And Detritus, O'brien Manages To Encapsulate The Experience Of An Army And Of A Particular War, Of A Mined And Booby-trapped Landscape, Of Cold Nights And Hot Days, Of Soaking Monsoons And Rice Paddies, And Of The Possibility Of Being Shot, Like Ted Lavender, Suddenly And Out Of Nowhere: Not Only In The Middle Of A Sentence But In The Midst Of A Subordinate Clause.