Status Updates From Something Said

Reading Sorrentino praise Gaddis is nice, but reading him trashing John Gardner is beautiful.

I’m enjoying this most when Sorrentino isn’t writing about poets, not because his criticism isn’t great but rather because I have always struggled to appreciate poetry. Anything even slightly autobiographical is a pleasure; any essay on an author I’ve read and have context for is great.

Students of poetry, you need this volume.

Finally a poet he don't like. Marianne Moore he identifies along with Frost and Sandburg as poets who "are almost wholly ignorant of the reality of living in this country."

Not to forget that Gil was also a poet. I sort of wish he hadn't been. His pieces on poets in this volume will be much more valuable to readers of poetry than they are to me.

A few pieces here on Hubert Selby's fiction. I only know the film of Last Exit, but it's enough to orient myself to what Gil's got to say about Selby; and then there are the goodreads Selby readers you oughta pay some attention to, too.

Readers of fiction should always find themselves reading essays and reviews and interviews by writers of fiction. That's what I say. Gil warms my heart.