Revisionary

There’s something about revising a novel that isn’t feeling productive. Perhaps I just want it done and over, no more examination of what does or doesn’t work; let’s move on to the next one, please. Revisions are making me impatient and endlessly grumpy. Yet, editing the work of others thrills me. Continue reading

Seriously

For Lionel Trilling, his widow points out, seriousness, not happiness, was the goal worthy of an intellectual life.

This week I’m reading from David Lehman’s The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets, from which the above is excerpted.

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