The Prophetic Delmore Schwartz
Click on the thumbnail for larger version
Even if it is in David Mamet’s sense of a “lapsed Talmudist,” my method of reading is Talmudic. When I read, I ask myself, and the text in hand, endless questions, questions that often engage with the various texts I’ve read over the years. This hypertextual mess sometimes clogs up the margins of my books and slows down my writing, particularly when I want to speak clearly to a general audience, as I often do as editor of JBooks.com.
Click on the thumbnail for larger version
Over the course of this series, I will apply this type of reading to something other than my own work. The columns will consider material from or referred to by Josh Lambert’s “American Jewish Fiction.” The first installment was about novelist Nathanael West, this one looks at Delmore Schwartz through the iconic opening to his classic short story (and eponymous collection) “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.”
Ken Gordon is the editor of JBooks.com.
Read Joshua Lambert’s review of “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities”
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
