Summary

“Writer, editor, critic, and translator” Jean Paulhan complains about the insistence many current writers have on novelty. He mentions how writers try to avoid using overused phrases, but sometimes they need to be used such as when a person’s eyes sparkle. He finds that when people insist on not using certain conventions anymore, they take away without giving anything new. He finds it sad and humiliating that writers do not want to use phrases that have charmed people for years. The narrator marks how the phrase, I love you, still has power despite the number of times it has been used in human history.

A man and woman have been caught in the rain. They sit on his carpet, and his mother walks in. He simultaneously wants her to go and to...