Vidal Gore — Eighteen Seventy [3218]

My pen delays … Stops. Why write any of this? Why make a record? Answer: habit. To turn life to words is to make life yours to do with as you please, instead of the other way round. Words translate and transmute raw life, make bearable the unbearable. So at the end, as in the beginning, there is only The Word. I seem to be making a book of maxims. — Vidal Gore, Eighteen Seventy, 3218

Note

This passage succinctly summarizes the narrator’s relationship with writing, illustrating how he views it as a transformative act that gives him agency over his experiences, thus deepening the reader’s understanding of his character.