Notes on Writing

A Young Ezra Pound

At the library today I bought from the for-sale rack, a little gem of a book about reading but it's equally about writing.  I don't know how you can really separate the two.  It seems to me if you really are a good reader, you should be able to write.  The book is called ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound.  First published in 1934.

When I opened the book, this was the first thing I read.

It is said that Flaubert taught De Maupassant to write.  When De Maupassant returned from a walk Flaubert would ask him to describe someone, say a concierge when they would both pass in their next walk, and to describe the person so that Flaubert would recognize, say, the concierge and not mistake her for some other concierge and not the one De Maupassant had described.


Without reading another word, I took the book over to the desk and bought it for $.50.  What a bargain!