Fame & Folly

From one of America's great literary figures, a new collection of essays on eminent writers and their work, and on the war between art and life. The perilous intersection of writers' lives with public and private dooms is the fertile subject of many of these remarkable essays from such literary giants as T.S. Eliot, Isaac Babel, Salman Rushdieand Henry James.

"A genuine literary education.... Each of these pieces is informed, gracefully written and propelled with narrative energy."—San Francisco Chronicle

"A glittering new collection.... Each essay shimmers with intelligence."—The New York Times


Table of Contents

1.) T.S. Eliot at 101: "The Man Who Suffers and the Mind Which Creates"
2.) Alfred Chester's Wig: Images Standing Out
3.) Our Kinsman, Mr. Trollope
4.) What Henry James Knew
5.) Isaac Babel and the Indentity Question
6.) George Steiner and the Errata of History
7.) Mark Twain's Vienna
8.) Saul Bellow's Broadway
9.) Rushdie in the Louvre
10.) Of Christian Heroism
11.) Existing Things
12.) The Break
13.) Old Hand as Novice
14.) Seymour: Homage to a Bibliophile
15.) Helping T.S. Eliot Write Better (Notes Towards a Definitive Bilbliography)
16.) Against Modernity: Annals of the Temple, 1918-1927
17.) "It Takes a Great Deal of History to Produce a Little Literature"