tradition: giving dead the vote
i had met a lot of strange people in my day, but none as strange as nagasawa. he was a far more voracious reader than i, but he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least thirty years. "that's the only kind of book i can trust," he said.
"it's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. life is too short."
***
if you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. that's the world of hicks and slobs. real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that.
- from norwegian wood, by haruki murakami
"it's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. life is too short."
***
if you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. that's the world of hicks and slobs. real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that.
- from norwegian wood, by haruki murakami