This blog's purpose is to promote the novel, The Long Habit of Living, by Mark Zipoli. Posts have excerpts from the book and related visuals to give the reader a heightened literary experience. Oftentimes posts may refer to my championing the works of John Cowper Powys, Orhan Pamuk, Doris Lessing, Anita Brookner, and other heroes.
"A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is: when I speak of writing, what comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or literary tradition, it is a person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and alone, turns inward; amid its shadows, he builds a new world with words." (Orhan Pamuk)
"He can write poems, plays, or novels, as I do. All these differences come after the crucial task of sitting down at the table and patiently turning inwards. To write is to turn this inward gaze into words, to study the world into which that person passes when he retires into himself, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy." (Orhan Pamuk)
One of my new "pages" on this blog is devoted to the deep admiration and respect I have for the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. His work enlightens, empowers, and entertains; and as a great man once said to me, "you can't get much better than that." The page is titled simply, "Orhan Pamuk says..."
