I read this in John Steinbeck's Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath, edited by Robert DeMott. The quote was attributed to Steinbeck, on reading the manuscript of Louis Paul's novel, The Wrong World (1938) and was courtesy of University of Virginia Library.

But the sureness of touch, the characters that move about, the speech that sounds like speaking, the fact that it happens, that one is never conscious of how a thing is said but only of what is said. I know the why and how of that. It's the millions of words written, all the short stories, even the ones that weren't any good. Without the millions of words written it is impossible to write a book like this. And by the same token - those millions of words are a guarantee that the last half will not falter for a moment.

Something I just finished reading. In fact I've recently read all his books. Compelling, lyrical - during World War II when the world was crazed. His writing transports you to the time. A full sense of the history moved along by excellent pure story.

From The Polish Officer by Alan Furst:

Was the third of June, 1940.

A springtime day in Paris and, last days being tricky this way, especially breezy and soft. ...

...Such girls. It would take the words of a Blok, a Bely, a Lezhev, to do them justice. "In Lights of a Lost Evening, the tenth volume from Boris Lezhev, this fierce apostle of Yesenin reveals a more tender, more lyric voice than usual. In the title work, for instance, Lezhev..."

Now there you had girls. Lithe, momentary, a flash in the corner of your eye, then gone. Nothing good lasted in the world, Lezhev thought, that's why you needed poets to grab it as it went flying by.

Well, now and then there was something good. For example Genya Beilis. Genya. Yes, he thought, Genya. ...He would miss her, up on his cloud or wherever he was going. Miss her terribly. ...

She was, just for a moment, very angry. Boris was gone, she would never hear his voice again. For all his drinking and brawling, he'd been a tender soul, accidentally caught up in flags and blood and honor and history, now dead of it. And here by her side was a man whose work lay in such things. I am sick of countries, she wanted to say to him.

What I've been reading.

William Langewiesche's "American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center", a three-part series in the Atlantic Monthly. I've just completed the 2nd in the September issue and am ready to move on to the last installment in the October issue. Exquisite writing. Charles C. Mann's article, "Homeland Insecurity," in the September issue shouldn't be missed either. Chilling. Now why can't they put someone like Bruce Schneier in charge of Homeland Security? If you are a crypto fan, don't miss his free monthly e-mail newsletter, Crypto-Gram. If you don't subscribe to Atlantic Monthly, you can read some of the articles at its website and the site also features more interviews, sidebars, etc., etc. Check out Atlantic Unbound.

My first post to my first blog. Must keep it short. Right?

"A tiny little word can be a clap of thunder." (French Proverb)