Homer Collyer's chosen form of self-expression is the piano, although late in life, when his hearing also goes, he takes to writing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer.
What the translator - myself in particular - does is not comparable to what the Homeric performer was doing.
If I stopped writing and being at my piano, I wouldn't know how to live. It's your best friend.
When I hear the piano played in a compositional way, like in a songwriter's way in a compositional way, there's a certain arc to that that I love.
Oh yeah, we all write. That's what's great about when you have basics in piano.
What is writing but an expression of my own life?
When I became more involved in music, I had to give up some of my writing in the literary sense. However, on occasion, I would write something for my own pleasure or I would write notes and introductory remarks in the songbooks I put together.
It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.
It's part of what I do at my piano - the hymns. And then I write.
Homer's whole language, the language in which he lived, the language that he breathed, because he never saw it, or certainly those who formed his tradition never saw it, in characters on the pages. It was all on the tongue and in the ear.