Ground Report

To be an American is to be a smiling child of the vast universe. One watches, in wonder, one’s own eventual crucifixion.

This book doesn’t have a single title, like Great Late Hits of Melville. The baroque style of “Billy Budd” either inspired Henry James or was itself a reflection of the latter’s delicate sonorities.

This volume is three jewels set in one diadem. I wish I could go door-to-door like a Jehovah’s Witness, telling each person, “You must read this book! It’s the only salvation for our cannibalistic Empire!”