venture further than his Inferno. If Dante’s paradise has notrnfixed firmly in the minds of most of us—and it has had 600 yearsrnto do so—how shall the contemporary writer successfully portrayrna vision of the ideal, his faith being so much shakier thanrnDante’s, his intellect so much less powerful, and his talentrndwarfish in comparison?rnOnly a very few artists have been able to offer a convincingrndelineation of moral triumph, and I have a doleful feeling thatrnnone of them is alive at this hour. This then is the first certainrnfailure the experienced writer knows he must face: the inabilityrnto outline with any confidence the figure of the ideal. And withoutrnthis foundation his work, no matter liow experdy fashioned,rnwill fall short of his hopes.rn—from Fred Chappell, “Writer and Community,” May J994rnThe problems of the literary scene are exacerbated by the attitudernof many readers who, as in other products and other aspectsrnof our society, haunted by brand names and victimized byrndie culture of celebrity, depend on publicity, advertising, andrnbook reviews more than their own good judgment and taste.rnStrangely, the book-reading public, relatively small as it may be,rnseems to be singularly easy to manipulate. Add to the hustle ofrnpublishers the unavoidable truth that so much that is published,rnfiction and nonfiction alike, does not speak to or about the livesrnand values of most Americans, and you have a situation thatrnlooks unlikely to change for the better any time soon. New technologyrnmay help a little bit—depending on the character of thernpeople who contiol it. Small presses, operating with low overheadrnand modest goals, may keep the idea of literature alive, ifrnnot well, in the future. Right now some of the university pressesrnare doing some good books and picking up where the bigrncommercial houses have failed. But a glance at the universityrnpress books advertised in PMLA does not inspire hope for thernfuture. Read the catalogue of Stanley Fish’s Duke UniversityrnPress . . . and weep.rn—from George Garrett, “Reading and Weeping,” May J998rnThe most astounding scholarly discoveries of today cannot helprnus in solving |the] problems of human identity.rnLiterature, however, is relevant to these problems. Literaturernand its only subject matter, the only game it pursues: the humanrnperson. Literahire has pursued this game for millennia. Itrnkee[)s pulling out of the anonymous human mass an individualrn(always in the singular, never in the plural) to whom it gives thernbody and soul, face and character, and whom it leads through arncertain course of events toward, perhaps, an immortality. It pursuesrnthat person’s earthly fate. It lights up the brief moment betweenrnhvo dark unknowns: before and after. It insists tiiat the individualrnwhose life it illuminates is unrepeatable, that he is arnperson, and thus different from anything else in the universe. Itrndiligently researches tiiat person’s virtues and trespasses, dreamsrnand crimes. Sometimes it offers forgiveness, at other times it isrnunyielding and austere as if it itself had to answer for its judgmentsrnto a higher authority.rn—from Zhigniew Herbert, “Invisible But Present,” August 1996rnThe only true verisimilitude for sane and healthy human beingsrnis surprisingness; it is the mentally sick who are predictable, andrntheir predictability constitutes their mental sickness. Whatrnmakes a long marriage possible, so that its participants do notrndie of boredom with each other, is precisely our capacity tornreinvent ourselves and each other, to play the storyteller withrnour lives and surprise our audience. It is the automatisms of ourrnspouses that are intolerable; the very thing that makes a novelisticrncharacter believable is what makes a marriage impossible.rnNo wonder that the easiest kind of novel to write is one about divorce!rnIn this sense the realist psychological novel can only bernabout damaged people.rnNot that complete people act randomly; rather, they are autonomous,rnthey make up tiieir rules through a process of reflectionrnand artistic synthesis that makes perfect sense after it hasrncome into existence and been explained, but which cannot bernpredicted beforehand by psychological or sociological laws.rnAnd the mechanisms of this freedom are to a large extent implicitrnin the classical artistic tools: in the literary field, poetic meter,rndramatic role-playing, sacrificial and performative action,rnmythic archetypes, and narrative struchire, among others. . . .rnLiterary forms are necessary: Experience has to be transmittedrnin some agreed or readilv comprehensible way. But certainrnforms, like fashions in dress, can at times become extreme. Andrnthen these forms, far from crystallizing or sharpening experience,rncan falsify or be felt as a burden.rn—from V.S. Naipaul, “Some Thoughts on Being a Writer,”rnMay 1987rnNovelists are persons who happen to see life, and the behaviorrnof human beings, in vivid interior images—though in very differentrnways—so that in a sense Proust has more in commonrnwith Harold Robbins than with persons who do not find imagesrntaking shape in the mind. .. .rnIf a character in a novel bears no resemblance whatsoever tornany human being we have ever met —nor could ever meetrnwhatever the circumstances, including reincarnation—there isrnlikely to be something wrong in the writing.rn—from Anthony Powell, “Literature and the Real Person,”rnJanuary J 985rnJust over the mountain from Dubrovnik, Kupres, black, burntout,rnchoked with men and cattle, writhed silent among thernwooded hills. Not far from it lay the immense Perucica, the lastrnEuropean jungle.rnLet the Cross and the Mace clash.rnWhose head bursts, woe is him!rnsang Petar Petiovic Njegos, prince-bishop of the 19th-centuryrnMontenegro. Seven feet tall, this mortal enemy of Bosnian andrnHercegovinian Muslims died at 38, a victim of border wars, beheadings,rnimpalements, and an eclectic, European knowledge.rn—from Momcilo Selic, “A Dirge for Bosnia,” May J988rnScott P. Richert, Chilton Williamson, Jr., and ChristopherrnCheck serenade Thomas Fleming at Chronicles’ 20thrnAnniversary Dinner.rn66/CHRONICLESrnrnrn