If People Persist In Trespassing Upon The

John Updike: Our Greatest Suburban Chic-boutique Man Of Letters. A Smug And Fatal Complacency Has Stunted His Growth Beyond Hope Of Surgical Repair. Not Enough Passion In His Collected Works To Generate Steam In A Beer Can. Nevertheless, He Is Considered By Some Critics To Be America's Finest *living* Author: Hold A Chilled Mirror To His Lips And You Will See, Presently, A Fine And Dewy Moisture Condensing -- Like A Faery Breath! -- Upon The Glass.

Edmund Wilson Was Our Greatest American Literary Critic Because He Was More Than A Literary Critic: He Was A Fearless, Even Radical Judge Of The Society He Lived In. (see, For Example, _a Piece Of My Mind_; _the Cold War And The Income Tax_; The Introduction To _patriotic Gore_.) Our Conventional Critics Cannot Forgive Him For Those Scandalous Lapses In Good Taste.

The Desert Wears... A Veil Of Mystery. Motionless And Silent It Evokes In Us An Elusive Hint Of Something Unknown, Unknowable, About To Be Revealed. Since The Desert Does Not Act It Seems To Be Waiting -- But Waiting For What?

We Are Befouling And Destroying Our Own Home, We Are Committing A Slow But Accelerating Race Suicide And Life Murder - Planetary Biocide. Now There Is A Mighty Theme For A Mighty Book But A Challenge To Which No Modern Novelist Or Poet Has Yet Responded. Where Is Our Melville, Our Milton, Our Thomas Mann When We Need Him Most?

A Giant Thirst Is A Great Joy When Quenched In Time.