Tuesday, March 5, 2013

someone dies


I read an obituary in the NY TImes and wonder, could that be me?  The headline reads,

Sylvia Smith, Memoirist of the Life Banal, Dies at 67

Sylvia Smith lived in London.  She liked to write and wanted to be, and was,  published.  She lived a modest, uninteresting life.  Critics debated whether what she wrote was literary or not.  She had no education.  No husband.  No children.  She was not a woman of means.


A critic once said of her, “To my amazement, I found myself gripped by this simply written, blow-by-blow account of what was, by most standards, a numbingly tedious everyday life.”

As I read those words, a chill went through me as I thought, hmmm, is that me?  A writer of a numbingly tedious everyday life?  I hope not, but still, I wonder.

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