When I told people last spring I was teaching a class on some postmodernist novels, a few shot me puzzled glances. Maybe they were wondering why anyone on earth would do that, but the questions they actually asked out loud were two: 1) What were we reading in the class? 2) What the heck is … Read More
The late, great Ruth Bader Ginsburg reported that, just before her wedding, her mother gave her some amusing advice for marriage: “Sometimes it helps to be a little deaf.” (She added it was also excellent advice for dealing with colleagues.) I thought of that story last year when I got asked by StoryWorth about relationship … Read More
“Only connect”—that’s as much as many of us remember about E. M. Forster. (It’s true even for those like me, who read his novels in my twenties with real pleasure.) By itself, the phrase sounds trite and way too earnest, in the gag-producing vein of Richard Bach’s “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” … Read More
My step-daughter has spent this week moving into her first house. During the process of unpacking, she’s sent us pictures of the little islands of order she’s created, each one surrounded by a flotilla of boxes. Her experience has made me think of the whole process of making a house into a home: shoving the … Read More