—Italian Saying
I picked up this Italian saying in a novel I didn’t much admire. And yet I love the thought. People get misty eyed about books these days, all books. I think this is mostly because there’s a lot less reading going on. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. They forget that many books need to be put on a diet. Others are poison at any length.
Mr. Cheever captures the zeitgeist of “reading” a book only to be disappointed by it. One is left with the feeling that a robbery of time has taken place, a very personal sense of being violated.