"As If It Were A Story"

[Isaac Babel's] diary isn't about war, but about a writer during a war—about a writer voraciously experiencing war as a source of material. Viktor Shklovsky, who invented the theory that literary subject material is always secondary to literary form, was a great admirer of Babel. "He wasn't alienated from life," Shklovsky wrote. "But it always seemed to me that Babel, when he went to bed every night, appended his signature to the day he had just lived, as if it were a story." Babel wasn't alienated from life—to the contrary, he sought it out—but he was incapable of living it otherwise than as the material for literature.

 - from Elif Batuman's The Possessed

(If you haven't already, you should listen to George Saunders read and discuss Babel's story "You Must Know Everything" at The New Yorker.)

Comments

[sam]

"appended his signature to the day he had just lived, as if it were a story." - i think that's a fantastic outlook. i want to live like that.

[maggie may]

i will check it out. always on the lookout for something wonderful..