LE MOT JUSTE

Flaubert could spend hours searching for a word. Not just any word capable of conveying an idea, but the one whose sound, rhythm, and meaning were inseparable from the sentence. The exact word: le mot juste.

Writing was also a process of elimination. Replacing, rereading aloud, distrusting ease. The right word should not merely say what one meant; it should seem irreplaceable.

There was something obsessive about this: the conviction that between thought and its expression lies a distance that the labor of language can endlessly attempt to reduce.

Perfection, however, remained on the horizon. Perhaps it was precisely this impossibility that kept the writing in motion.