Jhumpa Lahiri: "My Life's Sentences"

This Opinionator piece in the New York Times from Jhumpa Lahiri, author of The Interpreter of Maladies, talks about the power of sentences. This is just an amazing piece so I had to post it. Here's a glimpse:

via Princeton.com

"[Sentences] remain the test, whether or not to read something. The most compelling narrative, expressed in sentences with which I have no chemical reaction, or an adverse one, leaves me cold. In fiction, plenty do the job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters, enabling them to speak. But only certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil. The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. Style and personality are irrelevant. They can be formal or casual. They can be tall or short or fat or thin. They can obey the rules or break them. But they need to contain a charge. A live current, which shocks and illuminates."

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