“The first reading of some literary work is often, for the literary, an experience so momentous that only experiences of love, religion or bereavement can furnish a standard of comparison. Their whole consciousness is changed. They have become what they were not before…what they have read is constantly and prominently present to the mind…[they] mouth over their favourite lines and stanzas in solitude. Scenes and characters from books provide them with a sort of iconography by which they interpret or sum up their own experience.”

Short Fiction

Reviews

  • Built To Last – “William Trevor’s story collection is frequently melancholy, concerned with loss and disappointment, but warmed with radiant moments of grace or acceptance.”
  • Sunset Park by Paul Auster – “An estranged father-son relationship is the center of [Paul Auster’s latest] novel that examines how what we take for granted can come apart.”

Commentary and Criticism

News and Miscellany

Poetry Corner – Emily Dickinson

A Charm Invests a Face

A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld,-
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.

But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies,-
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.

Father, I bring thee not myself

Father, I bring thee not myself,-
That were the little load;
I bring thee the imperial heart
I had not strength to hold.

The heart I cherished in my own
Till mine too heavy grew,
Yet strangest, heavier since it went,
Is it too large for you?

The Writing Life