An Honest Ghost (14 page)

You’re so reluctant: Peter Cameron Someday This Pain Will

Be Useful To You 55

Am I upsetting: J. D. Salinger Franny and Zooey 196

He looked over: Sarah Schulman The Child 19

“Oh, you’ll see: E. F. Benson David Blaize 54

Here he poured: Virginia Woolf Orlando 89

Joe could only: Charles Dickens Barnbaby Rudge 633

“You’re useless: Binnie Kirshenbaum Pure Poetry 55

He told him: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 12

“It’s not my: Thomas Bernhard The Loser 14

Don’t we all: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03 68

We identify with: Tim Dean Unlimited Intimacy 23

David gave a: E. F. Benson David Blaize 31

He crawled back: John Banville Doctor Copernicus 85

Words, words, words: William Shakespeare Hamlet (Yale)

60

Every morning: Thomas Bernhard Prose 125

He looked forward: Colm Toibin The Master 233

Well, never mind: Plato Gorgias 13

We observe our: Thomas Dumm Loneliness as a Way of

Life 98

10.

Back in the: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 385

Even the self-deprecating: Joseph P. Lash: Eleanor and

Franklin 179

We spent the: Robert Bolaño Amulet 105

We discovered (very: Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions

68

Eleanor gave a: Ivy Compton-Burnett Parents and Children

69

She was wearing: John Fowles The Magus 14

It was that: James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young

Man 191

I viewed her: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 40

She flung herself: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark

62

“What a city: John Ashbery Flow Chart 189

Paris is the: Charles Henri Ford Like Water from a Bucket

208

When I look: David Lehman, ed. Great American Prose

Poems 128

This is in: Conor Cruise O’Brien Camus 78

“Is it a: J. M. Coetzee Waiting for the Barbarians 84

“Do you know: Gioia Timpanelli Sometimes the Soul 151

As if: Thomas Dumm Loneliness as a Way of Life 34

I rose from: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 42

I’ve had it: Robert Bolaño Amulet 35

Let them think: John Francis Hunter The Gay Insider 26

But in France: Milan Kundera Testaments Betrayed 181

This is real: Adam Thirlwell Delighted States 88

Swarms of crows: Franz Kafka The Castle 11

The fact is: Huysmans Against Nature 181

To me it: William Shakespeare Hamlet (Yale) 63

“Well,” she says: Justin Taylor Everything Here is the Best

Thing Ever 117

She moved in: Jean Genet Querelle 152

She was as: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 11

She was bizarre: John Fowles The Magus 14

“No means no: Bill Pronzini The Hidden 44

Perhaps you can: Theopile Gautier Mademoiselle de

Maupin 97

“If you’re hungry: Blair Niles Strange Brother 130

She went back: Rachel Ingalls Mrs. Caliban 63

Her thoughts were: Djuna Barnes Nightwood 76

She is inexhaustibly: Theopile Gautier Mademoiselle de

Maupin 99

And though thee: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will

Show 87

Her eyes sparkled: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 8

What can I: Charles Burkhart I. Compton-Burnett 50

She did not: Carson McCullers Member of the Wedding 22

I understand: Plato Collected Dialogues 619

A woman whom: Colette Pure and Impure 43

I had been: Adam Phillips Equals 122

To poeticize oneself: Søren Kierkegaard Diary of a Seducer

112

It is something: Jacques Lacan Four Fundamental Concepts

of Psychoanalysis 113

She turned: H. Rider Haggard She 231

“What have you: Henry Green Doting 42

She repeated all: Neil Bartlett Ready to Catch Him 198

For if there: Ronald Firbank Three More Novels 52

Imagine what that: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 144

“You think of: Jenny McPhee A Man of No Moon 208

She was really: Lydie Salvayre Company of Ghosts 15

I am nonviolent: John Francis Hunter Gay Insider 27

Luckily, the: Glen Baxter Returns to Normal (no

page numbers)

It’s still too: John Ashbery April Galleons 23

“I wish I: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 49

The indifference in: Jorges Luis Borges Collected Fictions

284

What makes us: Adam Phillips On Balance 267

The evening ended: Glen Baxter Returns to Normal (no

page numbers)

The great revolutions: Justin O’Brien Camus 34

If, as John: Adam Phillips On Balance 93

11.

Now that the: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 210

At night this: Alfred Chester Looking for Genet 172

Cars were rare: Justin Taylor Everything Here is the Best

Thing Ever 3

The black cattle: Glenway Wescott Continual Lessons 175

Night music: Marlene Van Niekerk Agaat 2

Most of the: Clive Fisher Hart Crane 251

But the people: Elizabeth Gilbert Last American Man 215

The high cold: James Joyce Dubliners 33

2:00-5:00: Susan Sontag Reborn 17

The pen was: John Ashbery April Galleons 1

I could go: Joshua Mehigan The Optimist 58

I wrote about: Robert Bolaño By Night in Chile 84

Every book is: Helen Keller The World I Live In 14

How deep-seated: Glenway Wescott Continual Lessons 169

Like an earnest: Kenneth Burke Towards a Better Life 24

It is up: Charles Guignon On Being Authentic 130

These are the: Adam Phillips On Balance 236

They lived und: James Joyce Finnegans Wake 28

What a difference: Pascal Pensees 168

I am forever: John Francis Hunter The Gay Insider 78

Silly seasons: Harold Bloom Anatomy of Influence 13

Tinkering over sentences: David McConnell Firebrat 3

Lately, my sexual: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 45

Revenge fucking: Michael Herr Kubrick 88

I felt excellent: Walter Kirn My Hard Bargain 103

Nonetheless my condition: David Markson Wittgenstein’s

Mistress 133

Loners can be: David McConnell Firebrat 3

It was all: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 9

Unending flights: W. G. Sebald After Nature 61

Other people see: Adam Phillips On Balance 224

I entered silently: Edmund White Noctures for the King of

Naples 84

Then I stood: Daniel Kehlmann Me and Kaminsky 94

After that it: Graham Greene May We Borrow Your

Husband 140

Writers are a: Justin O’Brien Camus 103

Our ears: Henry James Portrait of a Lady 311

The better you: D. H. Lawrence Studies in Classic

American Literature 42

Yet I could: John Ashbery Flow Chart 178

I am beginning: Andre Gide The Counterfeiters 205

I have always: Elizabeth Hardwick Sleepless Nights 11

And this must: Ludwig Wittgenstein Notebooks 1914-1916 13

My mother’s femaleness: Elizabeth Hardwick Sleepless Nights 21

My mother was: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 12

This was her: Dezso Kosztalanyi Skylark 15

And walking in: Djuna Barnes Nightwood 61

For nothing could: Lydie Salvayre Company of Ghosts 18

The dizziness and: E. F. Benson The Freaks of Mayfair 53

Women baffled me: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 33

I was born: Wayne Koestenbaum Moira Orfei in Aigues

Mortes 6

It was an: Mary McCarthy The Group 292

It was 1968: Paul Griffiths Modern Music 173

A sordid sexual: David McConnell Firebrat 81

From the beginning: Mikis Theodorakis Journal of

Resistance 29

It’s something almost: David Wojnarowicz Memories That

Smell Like Gasoline 47

Grown-ups tried: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03 69

I was a: Jean Genet The Declared Enemy 8

My mother was: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 33

Days and nights: Thomas Bernhard Prose 121

After I had: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 7

I knew that: George Orwell An Age Like This 1

I became a: Richard Rodriguez Brown 147

Land of noble: Walicki A History of Russian Thought 75

New York City: Hart Crane Libray of America: Complete

Poems and Selected Letters 306

New York seemed: James Blake The Joint 309

Meanwhile, the possibility: Paul Griffiths Modern Music

150

Thank you, Proust: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 17

I was glad: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 35

Then the amazing: E. F. Benson The Freaks of Mayfair 111

My mother wanted: John Cheever Stories 691

“My dear,” she: F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 40

My childhood was: Fran Lebowitz Reader 38

My mother has: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 133

My father went: Teju Cole Open City 188

Though long dead: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 256

Insanity, of course: Mark Rowlands The Philosopher and

the Wolf 18

We find our: Charles Guignon On Being Authentic 87

“I didn’t,” said Joe: O. Henry The Four Million 67

My experience of: John Cage Musicage 60

Perhaps the least: Fran Lebowitz Reader 88

Yet any distinction: Harold Bloom Anatomy of Influence 4

12.

David woke next: E. F. Benson David Blaize 34

He changed some: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark 110

At all events: W. G. Sebald Vertigo 18

There were so: James Joyce Dubliners 107

He regarded himself: Kenneth Silverman Begin Again 88

He had many: Gioia Timpanelli Sometimes the Soul 154

It was a: James Joyce Dubliners 182

He tried to: James Joyce Dubliners 39

For the moment: Richard Ellmann James Joyce 66

He felt that: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark 19

He had a: D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers 88

The idea of: Adam Phillips On Balance 224

I am sure: Ivy Compton-Burnett A Family and a Fortune 25

Which made it: Daniel Kehlmann Measuring the World 250

Mind you: Petros Abatzoglou What Does Mrs. Freeman Want? 94

His wife was: Dezso Kosztalanyi Skylark 79

But nobody came: Patrick White Vivisector 418

Obscurely, each thought: Bruce Duffy The World As I Found It 283

She noticed that: Henry James Portrait of a Lady 248

At such moments: W. G. Sebald Vertigo 28

It’s corny: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 16

“I suppose I: Blair Niles Strange Brother 221

The metaphor: Alex Ross Listen to This 16

I was still: Glen Baxter The Further Blurtings of Glen

Baxter [no page numbers]

But one has: Jacques Lacan Four Fundamental Concepts

133

There are moments: R.P. Blackmur Studies in Henry James

197

It was all: Dezso Kosztalanyi Skylark 84

Moral: slack beds: Richard Howard Inner Voices 409

I rubbed his: Edmund White My Lives 239

The poor man: Thomas Bernhard My Prizes 89

Still, he has: Mark Merlis American Studies 245

I didn’t like: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 22

I told him: Charles Henri Ford Like Water From a Bucket

149

A dreadful silence: E. F. Benson Freaks of Mayfair 123

13.

By late September: Ron Padgett Joe 216

He lived a: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 195

But he came: Gilbert Highet Poets in a Landscape 17

To travel without: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will

Show 85

One day while: Filip Noterdaeme The Autobiography of

Daniel J. Isengart 45

He lay half: Patrick White Vivisector 448

We’ve been discussing: Susan Sontag Reborn 84

He slouched down: Gilbert Adair Love and Death on Long

Island 132

“When I try: Ronald Firbank Three More Novels 36

The slight asymmetry: Edmund White Rimbaud 9

I liked being: Colette Pure and Impure 107

Those who meet: B. K. S. Iyengar Light on Yoga 45

“This,” I said: Giacomo Casanova History of My Life 707

Believe it or: Bruce Duffy The World As I Found It 220

“Whoa, slow down: Edward St Aubyn At Last 114

“Do you really: Sylvia Townsend Warner The Corner That

Held Them 56

All his life: Ron Padgett Joe 266

I exaggerate: Anita Brookner Look at Me 18

He never gave: Robert Walser The Assistant 281

That would be: Jane Gardam Faith Fox 81

But in general: Ron Padgett Joe 134

He waggled a: John Banville The Untouchable 139

“When one is: Ludwig Wittgenstein Notebooks 1914-1916

10

He was so: Robert Frost The Notebooks of Robert Frost 32

The sadness of: Sherwood Anderson Winesburg, Ohio 234

I could not: W. G. Sebald Rings of Saturn 5

He remembered his: Edna O’Brien James Joyce 12

In this he: Virginia Woolf Orlando 113

“Thank you for: D. H. Lawrence Selected Letters 307

Where did you: Bertolt Brecht Galileo 47

The book was: John Ashbery April Galleons 5

Joe had been: Ron Padgett Joe 52

It is all: D. H. Lawrence Studies in Classic American

Literature 148

The price he: John Banville The Untouchable 268

It seemed to: Glen Baxter Atlas (no page numbers)

I am a: Alex Ross Listen to This 5

I felt myself: Anita Brookner Look at Me 87

That is how: J. M. Coetzee Diary of a Bad Year 91

Silence, he said: Virginia Woolf Orlando 93

We take long: James Merrill The Changing Light at

Sandover 23

Sunshine, a bird: Roland Barthes Mourning Diary 166

Forced to make: Stephen Jay Gould Hen’s Teeth 164

You never stop: Lydie Salvayre The Power of Flies 55

Apart from that: Jean Echenoz Piano 114

To all appearances: James Blake The Joint 157

Or maybe not: Jean Echenoz Piano 87

It was that: H. G. Wells The Time Machine 27

The other houses: James Joyce Dubliners 71