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Maybe it’s that you interpret everything in a literal sense,
something you’ve always been guilty of.
The time has come to reflect on this point: What exactly is
the literal meaning of a sentence like this? It’s not an
infrequent one. When couples have been together for a
while, to prove their devotion, they get in the habit of
saying things like: “I couldn’t conceive of life without you.” I
just opened a book by Saul Bellow and found a dedication
to his wife: “To Janis, the star without whom I could not
navigate.” And I thought: This needs to be substantiated. If
Janis dies, will he navigate? Will he continue navigating?
What are we expressing when we say this? The intensity
that cannot be expressed in any other way? And, to what
degree is this just a figure of speech?
I had no doubt that in our case the sentence expressed a
deep-felt desire. Even more so for me: We writers are often
fragile, often dependent on someone who is by our side
and who is everything: admired character, constant source
of inspiration, unlimited support, teacher, love, lover. Not
only did I take these sentences very seriously, but I have
always been surprised to discover that there are couples
who are prepared to survive the other without the slightest
compunction. After he died I remember a friend telling me,
“Fortunately, he had the heart attack after he got home,
and not a few hours before while driving.” Since I’d always
thought that the prospect of the family dying together was