Sublime

prattle.

The Trouble I’ve Seen,

Without being a writer himself, he could speak the language of writers better than any editor or publisher” one would ever meet.

Updike’s “A&P”

In the years when I discovered the Abbé Vallet volume, there was a widespread conviction that one should write only out of a commitment to the present, in order to change the world. Now, after ten years or more, the man of letters (restored to his loftiest dignity) can happily write out of pure love of writing.

Il m’avait raconté à La Closerie des Lilas comment il écrivait des nouvelles qu’il croyait bonnes, et qui l’étaient effectivement, pour le Post, et comment ensuite il les modifiait avant de les soumettre à des magazines, sachant exactement par quels trucs transformer ses nouvelles en textes publiables dans tel ou tel périodique. J’avais été scandal

specter.