2.04.2009

Dogeared

When I come across a passage I especially like in the book I'm reading, I fold the corner of the page down. I've been doing this since high school. When I first started it was so I could go back later and transcribe the passage into a notebook. It's been a long time since I took the time to do that, but I've continued to dogear pages (which drives my bibliophile husband crazy).

I marked this today in the title story of Cynthia Ozick's Dictation:

[Joseph Conrad's amanuensis, explaining to Henry James' amanuensis how she and Conrad work together, admits to secretly correcting Conrad when he misspeaks an English idiom.]
"All that is similar to my own experience with Mr. James. Mr. James, however, is beyond correction."
"Mr. James was not born in Poland."
"But he was born in America, which makes his intimacy with the English language all the more remarkable."

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