An Honest Ghost (19 page)

Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner 16

The most precious: Cather Death Comes for the

Archbishop 38

“Not for long: Jenny McPhee A Man of No Moon 207

Joe listed one: Ken Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion 457

A dissatisfied mind: Henry James Portrait of a Lady 500

He wished he: Ted Hughes Tales from Ovid 33

“So is this: Robert Walser The Assistant 276

“I’ve had my: Sherwood Anderson Winesburg, Ohio 261

I don’t know: Ray Carney The films of John Cassavetes 27

“No, freedom is: Anton Chekhov The Portable Chekhov

369

I think all: James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son 9

I took my: Evan S. Connell Mrs. Bridge 124

Finally, in all: Van Gulden Real Parents Real Children 221

“Oui, oui, c’est: Fyodor Dostoevsky The Gambler 82

He chewed, and: Thomas Bernhard Frost 23

Nothing is easy: Nick Piombino Contradicta 40

“Quietly, my son: J. M. Coetzee Waiting for the Barbarians

91

At eighteen minutes: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 114

“I am leaving: Warner The Corner That Held Them 20

“You must find: Warner The Corner That Held Them 21

Nonsense: W. H. Auden Collected Prose Vol III 160

Non c’e peggior: Ilia Warner and Christopher Arnander

You Can’t Get Blood Out of a Turnip 90

No one is: Vladimir Lenin State and Revolution 46

I laughed in: Frank Lentricchia The Italian Actress 3

He was gone: J. D. Salinger Nine Stories 48

There remains only: W. G. Sebald Vertigo 154

Will our shame: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 53

It was all: Thomas Bernhard My Prizes 97

31.

But after all: Anton Chekhov The Portable Chekhov 340

The city and: Matthew Stadler Allan Stein 184

On one of: John Francis Hunter The Gay Insider 518

The mating of: W. H. Auden Forewords and Afterwords

518

With fallen branches: Kenneth Burke Towards a Better Life

27

The chords geese: Cotner and Fitch Ten Walks/Two Talks

10

Of all the: Karl Ove Knausgaard My Struggle: Book Two 61

“I believe Tarkovsky: Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life 86

He looked at: Harry Mathews The Journalist 54

I felt for: Paris Review Interviews Vol II 225

“My mother was: Charles Kaiser The Gay Metropolis 174

It was cooler: Patricia Highsmith Tremor of Forgery 146

I was never: Patrick White Vivisector 394

Some three years: Heinrich Kleist Selected Prose 269

Since then I’ve: Fyodor Dostoevsky The Idiot 56

It was a: F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 83

Encountering a stranger: Tim Dean Unlimited Intimacy

206

“Which reminds me: Robert Bolaño Amulet 45

Any congruence with: Jenny McPhee A Man of No Moon

151

On the high: Lucia Perillo I’ve Heard the Vultures Singing

28

Competition is a: J. M. Coetzee Diary of a Bad Year 80

This was disingenuous: Gore Vidal Inventing a Nation 109

“And I’m speaking: Truman Capote A Christmas Memory

57

Nevertheless, not everyone: Charles Kaiser The Gay

Metropolis 264

Though I would: James Blake The Joint 275

To this day: Fyodor Dostoevsky The Gambler 161

In all my: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03

71 And is the: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 87

Human sensitivity to: Pascal Pensees 14

“Would you please: Ernest Hemingway Short Stories 255

Nothing but disdain: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 89

The man with: Lydie Salvayre Power of Flies 102

As a boy: John Waters Role Models 177

Clearly the story: Kazuo Ishiguro Remains of the Day 36

He had a: Ellen Sussman Dirty Words 240

He has enormous: Jonathan Ames I Love You 97

But he never: Raymond Cooper Bunk House Hunks 115

He squeezes me: Amanda Michalopoulo I’d Like 77

The slow pressing: Paula Fox The Coldest Winter 55

You can feel: David Thomson Have You Seen…? 41

It occurred to: Pamela Erens The Understory 101

What is going: Edward Mendelson Early Auden 18

We’re deep into: Harry Mathews The Journalist 23

“No,” he said: Thomas Bernhard Gargoyles 51

I am, as: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark 40

You should have: Kenzaburo Oe A Personal Matter 141

God approved his: Nathanael West Miss Lonelyhearts 57

“Yes, I know: Henry James Portrait of a Lady 403

No matter how: Nathanael West Miss Lonelyhearts 6

The man had: Thomas Bernhard Gargoyles 83

“No: Patrick White Vivisector 397

Your Highness, I: Bertolt Brecht Galileo 93

The white American: James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son

119

“You have beautiful: Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to

Arms 13

“Wait a second: Pamela Erens The Understory 141

A breeze was: Kazuo Ishiguro Remains of the Day 67

“You’re not an: Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms 18

That isn’t funny: Bertolt Brecht Galileo 12

It was high: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will Show

80

“Time to fuck: Christopher Priest The Glamour 166

Filth: it is: Milan Kundera Testaments Betrayed 47

Just how he: Justin Spring Secret Historian 160

Then for a: Joseph Conrad Tales of Unrest 34

My belly is: Alfred Chester Looking for Genet 57

To live beyond: Fyodor Dostoevsky Notes from

Underground 7

But as I: F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 58

Eleanor, and only: Jane Austen Northanger Abbey 202

She was like: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03

75 It was very: Henry James The Europeans 44

She looks as: Hart Crane Library of America: Collected

Poems and Selected Letters 300

She was sort: Frederick and Steven Barthelme Double

Down 68

“I don’t know: Ronald Firbank Three More Novels 56

Not true: James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

177

She was cold: Warner The Corner That Held Them 28

Six years of: Warner The Corner That Held Them 29

“What are you: Alfred Chester Jamie Is My Heart’s Desire

255

“My life lately: Gioia Timpanelli Sometimes the Soul 37

She put both: Fyodor Dostoevsky The Gambler 122

“You like being: Albert Camus The Plague 126

She is so: Edward Mendelson The Things That Matter 176

“You get along: Ernest Hemingway Farwell to Arms 19

“Oh yes,” I: Christopher Priest The Glamour 206

Quite so: Plato Collected Dialogues 797

Cowed by my: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 183

Her mouth was: Rachel Ingalls Mrs. Caliban 19

She was a: James Joyce Dubliners 102

I wanted to: Ernest Hemingway Farewell to Arms 25

I was elated: Fyodor Dostoevsky The Gambler 148

She wasn’t sure: Darcy O’Brien A Way of Life Like Any

Other 51

But we were: Frederick and Steven Barthelme Double

Down 196

“You don’t want: Christopher Priest The Glamour 203

She felt a: Jane Gardam Faith Fox 63

With an impulse: Craig Seligman Sontag and Kael:

Opposites Attract Me 5

She wants to: Stephen Benatar Wish Her Safe at

Home x She had a: D. H. Lawrence St. Mawr 24

“Actually your father: Stephen Benatar Wish Her Safe at

Home 5

In the darkness: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will

Show 90

All is mystery: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 115

We lust for: Ray Carney The Films of John Cassavetes 222

32.

Surprisingly, Eleanor journeyed: Marion Meade Eleanor of

Acquitaine 266

And throughout the: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer

Will Show 117

From early morning: Herman Melville The Confidence

Man 69

Those who thought: Herman Melville The Confidence Man

69

In short she: Filip Noterdaeme The Autobiography of

Daniel J. Isengart 68

33.

The forsythia is: Pamela Erens The Understory 140

And you as: Samuel Beckett Nohow On 9

Do you remember: Frank Lentricchia The Italian Actress 7

I read again: Susan Sontag Reborn 12

To this end: Hart Crane Library of America: Collected

Poems and Selected Letters 123

The pleasures of: Rachel Ingalls Mrs. Caliban 25

In the vicinity: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 19

The very writing: W. G. Sebald Unrecounted 8

“Language,” says Wittgenstein: Marjorie Perloff

Wittgenstein’s Ladder 62

(Uttering a word: Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical

Investigations 4

There is no: Ludwig Wittgenstein Lectures 1930-32 50

In short, all: Umberto Eco Mysterious Flame 364

For no reason: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 13

A writer without: Charles Burkhart The Art of Ivy

Compton-Burnett 16

It’s scarcely possible: Susan Sontag Styles of Radical Will 14

We are in: John Cheever Stories 532

A novel must: Charles Burkhart The Art of Ivy Compton-

Burnett 17

“Once you pick: John Waters Role Models 95

34.

Roy gets up: Dorothy Gallagher Life Stories 15

“Be sober,” he: Gore Vidal Inventing a Nation 177

This succeeded, to: Franz Kafka The Castle 27

When he got: Justin Spring Secret Historian 164

That it should: William Shakespeare Hamlet (Yale) 22

He sat down: Henry James Portrait of a Lady 497

A bold, blunt-tipped: Willa Cather Death Comes for the

Archbishop 31

Never as a: Paula Fox Poor George 28

He’d grown up: Edmund White My Lives 223

He gets up: Anton Chekhov The Portable Chekhov 310

So far so: Gore Vidal Inventing a Nation 82

“Every thing must: Edward Mendelson The Things That

Matter 8

Don’t be too: Samuel Beckett Disjecta 47

And he retained: Kenneth Silverman Begin Again 78

We came to: Joseph Conrad Tales of Unrest 15

He wrote a: Milan Kundera Testaments Betrayed 26

But is a: Milan Kundera Testaments Betrayed 11

We take almost: W. G. Sebald Austerlitz 134

He said one: John Cage Musicage 61

“You should write: Lydie Salvayre Portrait of the Artist as a

Domesticated Animal 53

The most important: Richard Wollheim Painting as an Art

270

When I squint: Pamela Erens The Understory 75

The room was: AA Bronson Lana 152

Tell me, what: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 117

The policeman replies: Justin O’Brien Camus 85

I’ve only one: Henry James Portrait of a Lady 130

Fashion is very: John Waters Role Models 44

For this alone: Tony Judt Memory Chalet 87

I learned that: David Lynch Lost Highway xiv

We must learn: Kenneth Burke Towards a Better Life 9

The young man: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer

Will Show 108

Not bad, but: Emmanuel Carrère My Life as a Russian

Novel 32

He would describe: Anderson Ferrell Have You Heard 5

His words sounded: Joseph Conrad Tales of Unrest 24

The style, as: Ray Carney The Films of John Cassavetes 189

The Names of: James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

220

We stand at: Justin Taylor Everything Here is the Best

Thing Ever 120

“Well, my very: Truman Capote Music for Chameleons 247

I wasn’t in: David McConnell Firebrat 147

Must I remember: William Shakespeare Hamlet (Yale) 23

I ended by: Edmund Wilson Axel’s Castle 216

Nothing contagious,” I: Pamela Erens The Understory 13

Fictions constructed out: Susan Sontag As Consciousness

is Harnessed to Flesh 513

“What is that: J. M. Coetzee Waiting for the Barbarians

142

There was salami: Patricia Highsmith Tremor of Forgery

239

“You said so: Alfred Chester Jamie Is My Heart’s Desire

250

What foolishness!”: Søren Kierkegaard Works of Love 288

His lips were: Franz Kafka The Castle 29

Enough, unhappy one: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 187

35.

It was a: W. G. Sebald Austerlitz 142

Wild spring: James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

222

A pack of: Alex Ross The Rest is Noise 514

There was great: Willa Cather Death Comes for the

Archbishop 41

I hated them: David Lynch Lost Highway xv

Yet they looked: Patrick Leigh Fermor Time to Keep Silence

13

It feels like: Jonathan Ames I Love You 110

It goes on: David Thomson Have You Seen…? 47

All night their: Sylvia Townsend Warner The Corner That

Held Them 6

Let them howl: Vladimir Lenin State and Revolution 55

It is an: Iannis XenaKiš Formalized Music 9

Perhaps it is: Tobias Schneebuam Secret Places 158

The telephone rings: MiKiš TheodoraKiš Journal of

Resistance 153

“Well, thank you: Philip Roth Professor of Desire 85

I’m tired of: Elizabeth Gilbert Last American Man 226

“It is essential: V. S. Pritchett Dead Man Leading 22

It is a: Ivy Compton-Burnett A Family and a Fortune 25

From tomorrow onwards: Honoré de Balzac Lost Illusions

556

It seems to: W. G. Sebald Vertigo 145

“Who is there: Raymond Cooper Bunk House Hunks 139

The police officer: J. M. Coetzee Waiting for the Barbarians

148

Again I had: Plato Collected Dialogues 559

“I’ll be right: Alfred Chester Jamie Is My Heart’s Desire 248

“But you’re not: Alfred Chester Jamie Is My Heart’s Desire

30

O Mary, go: John Ashbery April Galleons 19

“The arrangement,” David: James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son

78

There was a: James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son 82

At dinner he: Rob Stephenson Passes Through 36

“And this guy: Charles Kaiser The Gay Metropolis 264