Free 101 Letters to a Prime Minister by Yann Martel Page B

judge in His name.
    Written in sparkling prose,
Oranges
is the sad, funny, tender tale of a young woman who must break into two pieces and then choose which of the two she wants to become. And that, having to make hard choices, having to choose between competing loves and lives, having to lose oneself so that one might find oneself, is instructive—besides highly entertaining—not only to adolescent Lancashire lesbians, but to me, to you, to everyone who is interested in making the most of life.
    So enclosed, a fifteenth book, a fifteenth life.
    Yours truly,
    Yann Martel
    P.S. Note the dedication. A book signed by the author herself. I had the good luck of meeting Jeanette Winterson in England recently and she kindly inscribed a copy of her book to you
.
    J EANETTE W INTERSON (b. 1959) is a British author and journalist. She shot to fame with the publication of her first novel,
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
, which won the 1985 Whitbread Prize for a First Novel. Since then, her novels have continued to push the boundaries of gender roles, sexual identity and imagination. Her continued contribution to British literature has earned her an Order of the British Empire. In addition to writing, Winterson owns a fine-food emporium, Verdes, in London.

BOOK 16:

LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET
BY RAINER MARIA RILKE
Translated from the German by M. D. Herter Norton
November
12, 2007
    To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
These lessons from a wise and generous writer,
From a Canadian writer,
With best wishes,
Yann Martel
    Dear Mr. Harper,
    Rainer Maria Rilke’s
Letters to a Young Poet
, the sixteenth book I am sending you, is a rich lode. These ten letters, written between 1903 and 1908 by the great German poet to a young man by the name of Franz Xaver Kappus, might be considered a precursor of creative writing instruction. They are useful to all of us who aspire to write. They have helped me, and I have no doubt that they will help you in the writing of your book on hockey.
    For example, in the very first letter, Rilke asks the young poet to ask himself the vital question “Must I write?” If there is not that unstoppable inner necessity, then one should not even attempt to write, suggests Rilke. He also makes much of the need for solitude, for that quiet sifting of impressions from which comes good, true writing and which can occur only when one is on one’s own.
    However, if Rilke’s letters were no more than technical advice on artful writing, I don’t think I would have sent them to you. Of what interest is a trade manual to someone who practices another trade? But these letters are much more than that, because what holds for art also holds for life. What illuminates the first illuminates the second. So, self-knowledge—must I write?—is useful not only in writing but in living. And solitude bears fruit not only for the one who aspires to write poetry but for anyone who aspires to anything. Whereas, to take a counter-example, I think it’s rare that advice to do with commerce has much use beyond commerce. Our deepest way of examining life, of getting to our existential core, is through the artistic. At its best, such an examination has nearly a religious feel.
    Take this passage towards the end of Letter Four, in which Rilke advises the Young Poet to wrap himself in solitude:
    Therefore, dear sir, love your solitude and bear with sweet-sounding lamentation the suffering it causes you. For those who are near you are far, you say, and that shows it is beginning to grow wide about you. And when what is near you is far, then your distance is already among the stars and very large; rejoice in your growth, in which you naturally can take no one with you, and be kind to those who remain behind, and be sure and calm before them and do not torment them with your doubts and do not frighten them with your confidence or joy, which they could not understand. Seek yourself some sort of simple and loyal community with them, which