“To tell you the truth, my friend, I did not care for him. He produced on me an unpleasant impression. And you?

Hercule Poirot was a moment before replying.

“When he passed me in the restaurant,” he said at last, “I had a curious impression. It was as through a wild animal -an animal savage, but savage! you understand- had passed me by.”

“And yet he looked altogether of the most respectable.”

“Précisément! The body -the cage- is everything of the most respectable -but through the bars, wild animal looks out.”

I close the book. How strange this text is to me! It was published in 1934. As I am curious, I searched for the day of death of Agatha Christie. She died eight days after my birthday. Meaningless information for my game!

My website needs a few updates, sorry

I’m writing this while on a flight. I’ve got a small tray table in front of me, the kind meant for meals. There is a cup of coffee that I’ve been sipping slowly, turning it into three cups over time. My small notebook and pen are my companions. The plane’s window next to me is tiny, about the same size as the table. I am in the cloud.

It’s been a good time for writing. I found myself thinking about Hemingway. If it was him, he would have finished a short story by now and sent it off to the Paris Review as soon as he landed, with the payment already in his pocket

Anyway, for me, it was a good writing piece. I have here my journey, and I prefer to think about this sentence by Raymond Carver: “A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.”

My website needs a few updates, sorry

.As autumn starts, I embrace transformation

Dear friends! Just like my website, I need a few updates too. You might notice some hiccups while we both get a little makeover. During this time, you can still write to me as always via email or social media, and I’ll be checking those channels. To fit with these new changes and challenges, I’m writing in English to feel less pain as I step into another world. Thanks for your patience and support! 

How does someone write in a way “not imitative of the natural speech of educated men,” how might he exploit our “inability to speak in an ordinary way”? How does he get so good at describing “the banality of the banal man”?

این‌طوری‌ها فروردین ۱۴۰۳ تمام می‌شود. و البته در میان مراقب‌خودت‌باش‌های بسیار.

Whitman was right: we are large, we do contain multitudes. There’s more than one “us” in there. When we “find our voice”, what’s really happening is that we’re choosing a voice from among the many voices we’re able to “do”, and we’re choosing it because we’ve found that, of all the voices we contain, it’s the one, so far, that has proven itself to be the most energetic.

By George Saunders

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