Quote of the Day (Alice McDermott, on Perceptions of Literature Vs. ‘Chick Lit’)

“A woman narrating the story of her life with an annoying boyfriend was chick lit. A man narrating the story of his life with an annoying woman was, well, literature.” ― American novelist Alice McDermott, What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction (2021)

The image accompanying this post was taken by Slowking4, showing Alice McDermott reading at the 2018 Gaithersburg Book Festival, May 19, 2018.

Quote of the Day (Cynthia Ozick, on Letters as Literary Plot Devices)

“Letters, in our common understanding, are not meant to be fiction, or jokes, or games, or tricks. They are not meant to compete with storytelling, and if they do, if they are dragooned into real life, they become conflated with conspiracy. Yet without letters, what would become of the crux of so many novels and plays? Of literature itself? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein sets out with a series of letters; more letters fever it forward. Had Mr. Darcy not hand-delivered his letter to Elizabeth Bennet, she—who could brook neither fools nor snobs—might have lived unwed. If Romeo had read Friar Laurence’s letter, he and Juliet would have averted their misconstrued deaths. Acclaimed eighteenth-century epistolary novels—Pamela, Fanny Hill, Clarissa—could not have come into being, at least not in their chosen form; nor could Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, or Bellow’s Herzog. If not for a letter to his aunt, Marlow, the protagonist of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, would have been obliged to discover another contrivance to introduce his journey up the Congo. And what of the mute and final revelation of Melville’s Bartleby: his origin in the Dead Letter Office?”— American short story writer, novelist, and essayist Cynthia Ozick, “Voices from the Dead Letter Office: On the Epistolary Life,” Harper’s Magazine, January 2025

Quote of the Day (Poet Tracy K. Smith, on Whether Books ‘Serve a Moral Function’)

“It’s a mistake to expect literature to teach us how to live our lives. But the practice of reading does, to my mind, serve a moral function. On its most basic level, literature instills in us the capacity to be rapt and beholden to a stranger’s voice, to do everything possible to hear and heed that voice in such a way that it is permitted to illuminate something. Sometimes what it illuminates are facets of ourselves — even our former or future selves. This to me feels like a very vital moral exercise.”—Former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, “By the Book: Tracy K. Smith,” The New York Times Book Review, Nov. 19, 2023

The image accompanying this post was derived from a photo of Tracy K. Smith with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, taken Sept. 25, 2017, by the Library of Congress.

Quote of the Day (Philip Roth, on Morality and Literature)

“Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts. The question to ask about the writer isn’t ‘Why does he behave so badly?’ but “What does he gain by wearing this mask?” — American novelist Philip Roth (1933-2018), interview with Hermione Lee, “Philip Roth, The Art of Fiction No. 84,” The Paris Review, Issue 93, Fall 1984