The Art of Mystery: The Search for Questions | 
so-soI like this series. Semi-successful entry on a tricky theme: how mystery is created in fiction. Examples: Henry James, WG Sebald, Shirley Jackson, James Baldwin, Paul Yoon. The frustration & freedom in mystery. Imagination, capacity for wonder, pursuit of strangeness. Hauntings. Accepting what can‘t be understood.
98 — “the land of Un: uncertainty, unknowing, unfathomability.”
137 — “There‘s an aspect of infinity to mystery—an eternal becoming.”
so-soRead this in preparation for a writing workshop. The only other book in the series I‘ve read is THE ART OF TIME IN FICTION by Joan Silber. Not sure how I feel about the series in general—I appreciate the concept, but they might work better as essay collections from a range of different writers on a given concept or topic.
Been thinking a lot about language and how words/names are powerful but also restrictive. This chapter is illuminating that concept.
