The Sounds of Silence

Here is Pico Iyer on the eloquent sounds of silence.

It takes so long

George Harrison, “My Sweet Lord,” The Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, August 1, 1971

J.G. Ballard, 1930-2009

“But then, existence itself is a very special kind of joke.”

—J.G. Ballard, Paris Review interview

Wisdom from Cortazar

It would seem that the usual novel misses its mark because it limits the reader to its own ambit; the better defined it is, the better the novelist is thought to be. An unavoidable detention in the varying degrees of the dramatic, the psychological, the tragic, the satirical, or the political. To attempt on the other hand a text that would not clutch the reader but which would oblige him to become an accomplice as it whispers to him underneath the conventional exposition other more esoteric directions.
— Hopscotch, Julio Cortazar  (Translated by Gregory Rabassa)