Isn't my difficulty with writing narratives the same problem I have with dealing with "boring" details in everyday life. I realized reading the Auster book is that he takes the trouble to construct all the "boring details" that creates the feeling of an actual scene- yet the writing has the "driven" quality of the aphorisms of E.M. Cioran.

The aphorism contains all the same qualities as the Auster books- doubts, suspicions, exaltations, above all *impulses*- but Auster organizes them around specific *scenes.* So you could write a novel with a visual storyboard- index cards.

"I have all the defects of other people and yet everything they do seems to me inconceivable."
Em Cioran, "The Trouble With Being Born" p.31.

"Easy to imagine the elements , bored with their exhausted theme, disgusted by their invariable and utterly preditable combinations, seeking some diversion: life would be merely a digression, merely an anecdote." (p.47)
(3/30/92)