A Quote by Sol Luckman on beginners luke, herman melville, reality, imagination, consciousness, drummon light, theater, character, protagonist, teacher, tradition, hope diamond, enlightenment, writing, writing light, literary theory, manifesto, and ars poetica

Once in every generation, if we’re lucky, a character shows up who can teach us about reality because he’s more real than ourselves. Melville called such a character a “Drummond light” after the type of light once used in theaters that was capable of providing illumination in many directions. May one of us create such a character. Better yet, let’s buck tradition and create a string of Drummond lights, each a brilliant facet of the Hope Diamond that is our new fiction. Let’s turn away, once and for all, from old Enlightenment tropes toward a new narrative of Enwritenment. Together let’s write light.