How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Description

THE AMAZING THING ABOUT BOOKS is the means by which they have lives of their own. Essayists

think they know their business when they plunk down to make another work, and

I guess they do, straight up to the second when the last bit of accentuation gets

planted on the last sentence. As a general rule, that accentuation is a period. It

ought to be a question mark, however, in light of the fact that what happens from that point on is

anyone’s supposition.

The exemplary model is the essayist whose best book goes crash upon discharge.

Think Herman Melville or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Melville more likely than not suspected, after

discovering huge readerships for prior books, that the crazed quest for the white

whale would be a raving success. It wasn’t. Nor was Fitzgerald’s story of a sentimental

visionary attempting to revamp his past. There are likewise stories, obviously, of surprising smash hits that continue forever, as

well as flashes in the dish that erupt yet incredible suddenly and completely. Be that as it may, it’s

the Moby-Gatsby sort of story that forces our consideration.