I think you should only read books that bite and sting you. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a punch to the skull, why are we reading it? So that it makes us happy, as you write? My God, we would be happy even if we didn't have books, and we could write the books that make us happy ourselves if need be. But we need books that have an effect on us like a misfortune that hurts us very much, like the death of someone we preferred to us, like pushing us into the woods, away from all people, like a suicide, a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
I think you should only read books that bite and sting you. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a punch to the skull, why are we reading it? So that it makes us happy, as you write? My God, we would be happy even if we didn't have books, and we could write the books that make us happy ourselves if need be. But we need books that have an effect on us like a misfortune that hurts us very much, like the death of someone we preferred to us, like pushing us into the woods, away from all people, like a suicide, a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.