REFUSING TO CANNIBALIZE MY LIFE
story: “Bullet in the Brain”
author: Tobias Wolff
year: 1995
where: Aspen
note: Reread! Breathtaking.
a line: “He did not remember Professor Josephs telling his class how Athenian prisoners in Sicily had been released if they could recite Aeschylus, and then reciting Aeschylus himself, right there, in the Greek.”
theme(s): Society, Memory, Death, Joy
story: Gryphon
author: Charles Baxter
year: 1985
where: Reem Island
note: substitute facts!
a line: “My feeling is, if you don’t like a word, you don’t have to use it.”
story: The Rich Brother
author: Tobias Wolff
year: 1985
where: kitchen table, after midnight
note: reread
a line: “What Pete had come to, as far as he could tell, was prosperity.”
story: Bullet in the Brain
author: Tobias Wolff
year: 1995
where: a cozy wooden room, 600 meters high in the mountains
note: a favorite!
a line: “He did not remember Professor Josephs telling his class how Athenian prisoners in Sicily had been released if they could recite Aeschylus, and then reciting Aeschylus himself, right there, in the Greek.”
