Bridging the gap...

... Literature and Literary Tamasha

I submit that a seriousness of purpose about writing does not demand a single-minded commitment to writing and nothing else. The vocation is compatible with—indeed it requires—a serious interest in the things that books are about: life, people, the world. Equally, a commitment to reading does not require us to treat literature as a sanctuary from the cacophony of voices outside the study. Rather, reading can present us with yet other voices that render the cacophony intelligible, give us the resources to live in the world. The converse is also true: it is in engaging with the world’s noise that we form the selves that read and write. Sometimes, the right way to engage is to refuse to engage, but the operative word here is sometimes.