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mccarthyism

"memory takes a lot of poetic license. it omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart." :tennessee williams, "the glass menagerie"

6.25.2012

A pleasant summer, low on the usual stresses. I’m still wondering very much what I’ll be doing in a year. I’ve decided to apply to graduate programs in English, which according to just about everyone I’ve talked to is a pretty stupid thing to do, career wise. I'm fairly apprehensive about my prospects, and I want to make sure that it’s really what I want to do, first of all, and that if I do go ahead with it that I do it with my eyes open, and don't back myself into a corner, academically, financially, or any other way. Right now my plan is to apply to only really good programs, and programs that fit well with my own plans and interests, with the idea that, if I get in, I'll be in a program that I like and that gives me a good chance of placement afterward, and if I don't get in, well, then I'll have to reevaluate. Which is fine. Frankly though, I don't have another idea at this point.

In the meantime I’m still at Newport, I’m finishing my internship for Dr. Manetsch (the last thing I have to do at TEDS), studying for the GRE, and working on a fairly pretentious story, set in Switzerland and with Hopkins as a character. The story is very slow going, but I still like it. I’m trying to write the kinds of things I would like to read. My focus is on the story, on careful description and very simple language, and on a kind of literary and theological fourth dimension, comprised of subtle allusions and of a reverence for a certain kind of character. I have no interest in being inventive, or in shocking, or even in making an engrossing plot. There are many ways to hold attention. I’m thinking about Thornton Wilder, and Willa Cather. What I really need is the discipline, and the time and space, to keep at it. Ideas are not as hard to come by as I used to think, though it does take a lot of work. What’s hard is to keep at it, and to maintain the level of focus and protracted effort which is really “the best I can do.” Whatever that is, it’s all I’m aiming for.

Reading:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn August 1914 (we’ll see if I get through it this time)
Thornton Wilder The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Marilynne Robinson The Death of Adam

posted by ethan  # 6/25/2012 06:38:00 PM

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