When I Was Teaching At The University

The Novels Were An Escape From Reality In The Sense That We Could Marvel At Their Beauty And Perfection. Curiously, The Novels We Escaped Into Led Us Finally To Question And Prod Our Own Realities, About Which We Felt So Helplessly Speechless.

A Good Novel Is One That Shows The Complexity Of Individuals, And Creates Enough Space For All These Characters To Have A Voice; In This Way A Novel Is Called Democratic - Not That It Advocates Democracy But That By Nature It Is So. Empathy Lies At The Heart Of Gatsby, Like So Many Other Great Novels - The Biggest Sin Is To Be Blind To Others' Problems And Pains. Not Seeing Them Means Denying Their Existence.

Poor Reading, Like Poor Writing, Is Imposing What You Already Know On Texts. You Should Go Into Reading To Discover, Not To Reaffirm What You Know.

Reality Has Become So Intolerable, She Said, So Bleak, That All I Can Paint Now Are The Colors Of My Dreams.

That, Of Course, Is What Great Works Of Imagination Do For Us: They Make Us A Little Restless, Destabilize Us, Question Our Preconceived Notions And Formulas.