Writing

I mentioned before that it is impressive to be able to pull together previously unconnected threads and change the way people understand what they encounter every day. But it is something else altogether to put words to something we feel, but struggle to describe.

In Marguerite Duras' The War: A Memoir, she describes the return of her husband, recently liberated from a Nazi concentration camp at the end of the Second World War. Near dead from starvation, he is under strict doctor's orders to eat very little, lest he die from eating too much too quickly.

"He has gone and hunger has taken his place. Emptiness has taken his place."

Her description is stark and brutal, but her ability to describe the situation so clearly still shocks me. The pages that deal with her husband's return and recovery are extremely bleak. But they are stunning.