…today I wrote two pages and oh Bob I do want it to be a beautiful book because it seems important to me that people try to write beautifully, now more than ever because the world is so crazy and only art is sane…

I took “Stylization,” and, I think, wrote a very clever essay ostensibly in praise of style in all its forms as a religious devotee of style…

Albert Camus and Jean Grenier met in 1930; Camus was a student at the University of Algiers, Grenier his philosophy professor. Their student-mentor relationship lasted until 1960 and Camus’ death. Camus describes his current work to Grenier as three pieces … Continued

Are the only American poets to be those who are too lazy to study or travel, or too cowardly to learn what perfection means?

…lo and behold it turned out to be Goethe who wrote a book about how foolish it was to be born and scores of German youths committed suicide after reading it and when I tried to read it to see whether I would feel like committing suicide…

Morgan [le Fay] learned necromancy in a nunnery. What better school for witches—lone, unfulfilled women living together.

Almost eight years before the publication of Dubliners, James Joyce was involved in a tense correspondence with Grant Richards, the man who originally agreed to publish the manuscript. The printer originally hired to set the book had objected to its … Continued