“Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers.And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see.”

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About James Salter

American novelist and short-story writer, Air Force officer and pilot

James Salter was an American novelist and short-story writer. He is best known under his pen name, and later legal name, James Salter. He was also a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, until he resigned in 1957 after the success of his first novel, The Hunters. Salter wrote fiction shaped by a life in and around military service, and his work is often associated with precision, restraint, and close attention to character and experience. His reputation rests on novels and short stories that reflect the discipline and pressure of those worlds.

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