A Cordial Light

Walking gradually toward that dark sun of anguish, through writing. “To write is to judge oneself,” said Ibsen; “it is a work of demolition.” “To write is to try not to die,” said Marguerite Duras. Or must we accept that we are dead in order to write? To see exactly what a dead person can see—is that the foundation of writing? “To return to the surface with bloodshot eyes,” as Melville put it.