Simplicity

There was a contention on someones blog concerning the tendency to glorify rural life in literature without due explication of the necessary work, fatigue and relative poverty of such an endeavor. The response to this claim was calm and measured. By a similar stretch I find myself often lost in the demands of the work week and my concurrent mania for desiring to read everything NOW, DAMNIT!I was working a few weeks back and heard Bob Edwards interview with Julian Barnes on NPR. I remain a serious Barnes enthusiast but haven't read but likely half of his novels. I have always admired not only his wit in interviews but his grasp of the responsibilities of a journalism on both sides of an interview or through well-tempered tunnel of an essay.

I was saddened just now to learn of the passing of his wife, the literary agent Pat Kavanagh.