Perhaps you’ve heard of this story involving Gustave Flaubert. Not a story by him, about him. He is taking a stroll down the street and encounters a family scene. He utters, unironically, “Ils sont dans le vrai!” (We are in the truth!).

The details of this story differ, based on who tells it. But here’s the kicker: this anecdote turns up a lot, in other writers’ lives. Writers I have loved, like Franz Kafka and Philip Roth. Other writers are ostensibly obsessed with this little tale, this little phrase, and they spin it to fit their own lives/work. How powerful is that? To be so renowned a writer that something you utter (notably not something you wrote) becomes a resonating tale for other renowned writers?

And then, enter me (she says in parentheses) who keeps coming across this “Dans le Vrai” story in the things that I read. It seems like kismet. Or, an example of a “literary moment,” a term I define as an event whilst reading when I make a connection in my head to other things I have read that leave me jumping up and down in near-ecstasy. It has happened at least twice in my life. And it is the best feeling.

Thus, “dans le vrai” has taken up its own meaning for me, to fit my life. I have taken this phrase to signify  a “literary moment,” which is what drives me.

Anyway, all this to say: I am starting a blog, which will be about what I read and what I think about what I read. Are you bored? Then come on board!