'fumbling around in the dark'

"(...) E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, a book I was convinced was outdated. It had been dropped from the syllabus in university English departments and exiled to creative-writing departments, where writing is treated as craft and not as a spiritual and philosophical act."
Pamuk em The Naïve and Sentimental Novelist.

(o título sendo o seu método de self learning)