![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Meaning: even if your novel, play, short story, essay, or poem seems focused on the joy of life, that joy is writing more deeply into a plot that has the same conclusion. After all, death is always the eventual outcome, the final conclusion of every story." "All writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality-by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead." Adds Danticat: "In other words, even when we are not writing about death, we are still writing about death. One quote I liked came late in the book from the Canadian author Margaret Atwood: You may think reading such a book is morbid (and certainly, people who see the cover while you're reading it will get that just-swallowed-a-lemon look and ask, "Why so morose?" or, if they're clever, "Light beach reading, I see"), but really, what could be more humdrum and everyday than reading about death as usual? After all, death goes on, as the saying goes, and only fools hide from it. Thus, the book offers many allusions to writers past and present, along with edifying quotes to show what the author means. What art is there in dying, you ask? Well, Danticat is more about the literary treatment of death in all its manifestations (alone, together, by accident, by your own hand, by murderers, etc.). One of those "tiny" books, dimension-wise, The Art of Death is a quick read. ![]()
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