““Into thirty centuries born,” Edwin Muir began his most celebrated poem, “At home in them all but the very last.” Much is said about escapism in narrative and fiction. But perhaps the greatest escapism of all is to take refuge in the domesticity of the past, the home that history and literature become, avoiding the one moment of time in which we are not at home, yet have to live: the present.”

— Tim Parks

"Why Read New Books?" The New York Review of Books (11 November 2014).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Tim Parks 3

British writer 1954

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The Monthly Magazine

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