Читать книгу The Story I Am - Roger Rosenblatt - Страница 23

From the Memoir The Boy Detective

I tell the story of my grandfather as if he urged me on my way. But I don’t think it’s so. More likely, it is one of those memories we find to create patterns and connections in our lives where none exists. In the sixth grade, I wrote a poem about George Washington saying goodbye to his troops. This was not in response to an assignment. I simply was moved to do it. And I wrote things for the school literary magazine, only one of which I recall—a monologue spoken by a lawyer who had deliberately given little effort to his defense of a black kid from the streets, because his client represented a lower social class. Pretty obvious stuff.

But actually becoming a writer? I think I was more impressed by the idea of a person who worked alone and did what he liked. I relished stories about writers, movies about writers, as I did about detectives. The very word thrilled me—writer, one who imagines all of experience and creates it again. All the world sits in awe of writers, I believed, the storytellers of the race. Best of all, a writer is invisible. He tracks you down without your knowing he’s there. And he’s not there. A book is published. The writer does not have to accompany it. Go, litel bok.