“I’m writing too much here.”
§76 [16.iii.24.a : samedi] From that we can infer the size of V.W.’s notebook … as for me ,;, when one writes into the void, there’s never any danger in filling up a bottomless pit. The danger of engineering grand projects — M.O.s — is that (without careful planning) they will (if by land) collapse under their own weight or (if by sea) founder. Being a writer of extremes, I’m drawn to both the very large and the very small. I dream of fat books and skinny books ,;, I delight in either the epic or the haiku. / The diary (as a form) is brilliant ,;, sequence is all. As long as you don’t forget to inscribe the date, the diary accepts everything and holds up. Part of the genius of the diary is that it combines both fat and skinny : after six months or a year, the diary is already becoming a substantial volume, but each entry is an exercise in the short form. The diary entry gives one the skinny and the whole of the diary satisfies one’s desire for the grand, the expansive, the fluvial — yes, like a river, ever expanding as it flows intentionally toward and into the ocean, the great void itself. Literature is that ocean. Most readers are content with admiring what floats on top of that ocean, but there are a few of us who delight in diving deep. The greatest part of any ocean is what lies beneath the surface.