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About forty years ago, in a high-school English class, I learned that talking about literature, like talking about yourself, incurs some small dangers of self-revelation, even though literary talk is distanced by logic and standards of objectivity, and is controlled by good manners–a social activity of nice people.

My teacher’s name was McLean, a thin man with a narrow head and badly scarred tissue about the mouth which was obscured by his mustache. It looked British and military. The scar tissue was plain enough, despite the mustache, like crinkled wrapping paper with a pink sheen.

Listening to him, looking at…

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March 1987

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