Thursday 2 May 2024

Literature is the Sum of its Discoveries

V.S. Naipaul, Literary Occasions: Essays (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), p. 39:
Literature is the sum of its discoveries. What is derivative can be impressive and intelligent. It can give pleasure and it will have its season, short or long. But we will always want to go back to the originators. What matters in the end in literature, what is always there, is the truly good.