I know Hannah is a beloved figure (lavish blurbs on this edition from Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Alfred Kazin, James Dickey), but this doesn't do anything for me. Ray a miscellany of edgy zaniness that we're apparently supposed to accept quite soberly as a literary correlate of "the American co...
"'Books, think about it, the writer of a book does envy, sloth, gluttony, lust, larceny, greed or what? Oh, vanity. He don't miss a single one of them. He is a peeping Tom, an onanist, a busybody, and He's faking humility every one of God's minutes. Especially those Christian ones that write abou...
What are all these about?""What do you think?""I don't know... smudges? The vagueness of all things?""They aren't things. They're emotions.""You mean hate, fear, desire, envy?""Yes. And triumph and despair." She pointed."This is subtle. They look the same," Levaster said."I know. I'm a nihilist."...