All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.
(Hemingway, on how to begin a story)
Doing full-time philosophy studies involves a goodly amount of reading, leaving me with less time (and notably, energy) for my 'own' reading. Having realised that I need to be more selective, I recently did something that I rarely do: I abandoned a novel. It was Lancelot, by Walker Percy. I had never read anything by him and that was the first book on the shelf I saw by him, so I took it. But I quickly found it plodding, uninteresting and even downright silly. Finally, about three-quarters of the way through, I made the principled decision to put it aside. Life is too short.
