Books are not life, only its ashes

Here is an interview I came across with Yourcenar. As one would expect she takes no prisoners and clearly would rub up activists the wrong way — hence they systematically avoid her, assuming they’d even read top-notch stuff like “Hadrian”. I guess she would be unknown to “creative writing” courses constituted as they seem to be by nth rate ideological tripe. I can imagine that Camille Paglia would certainly appreciate Yourcenar. Here too is an article in The New YorkerAnd by the way, Yourcenar loved gospel and blues music.

It does not interest me. I have a horror of such movements, because I think that an intelligent woman is worth an intelligent man—if you can find any—and that a stupid woman is every bit as boring as her male counterpart. Human wickedness is almost equally distributed between the two sexes.

The sacred is the very essence of life. To be aware of the sacred even as I am holding this glass is therefore essential.

I am myself neither rightist nor leftist.