Song of a Reformed Headhunter

After reading this novel, I don't think I understand this "saddest story" about the emotional entanglement between two couples, but I had a strong sense of permanent bewilderment, which is, perhaps, the effect the author sought for. Dowell, the conservative American, is an unreliable narrator, but is his unreliability a matter of ignorance, secrecy or deception? It may be impossible to tell, as David Bradshaw's Introduction argues by adducing evidence for each interpretation. Dowell comments on his own narration thus: I have, I am aware, told this story in a very ambling way so that it may be difficult for anyone to find their path through what may be a sort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to my idea of being in a country cottage with a silent listener, hearing between the gusts of the wind and amidst the noises of the distant sea, the story as it comes. And, when one discusses an affair--a long, sad affair--one goes back, one goes forward. One remembers point...

Literary Imagination is a journal of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics (ALSC), published by OUP. It is edited by Peter Campion. After joining ALSC, I received the journal in May (?), but put it aside for summer reading. It is a pleasure to read.  The academic articles are scholarly but not overly specialized, with useful explanatory footnotes and references. They are written in clear, accessible prose, more formal than the belle lettristic, but without the technical vocabulary of Theory. I especially enjoyed James Sitar's transcription of a talk by Robert Frost, Janet Gezari's "Kurtz's Night Table" (which approaches the teaching of Heart of Darkness through Coppola's Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now ), John Koethe's "Wittgenstein and Lyric Subjectivity," and William Edinger's "Yvor Winters and Generality: A Classical/Neoclassical Perspective." The last is particularly insightful, in describing the greatness in Winters...