Sublime
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Who knows how Chekhov arrived at this decision, practically speaking, but we can observe what he did: he got rid of Hanov. Now there’s no danger that the story will take that easy route. This is an important storytelling move we might call “ritual banality avoidance.” If we deny ourselves the crappo version of our story, a better version will (we a
... See moreGeorge Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
What seemed to him strangest of all was that his brother Ivan, on whom alone he had rested his hopes, and who alone had such influence on his father that he could have stopped him, sat now quite unmoved, with downcast eyes, apparently waiting with interest to see how it would end, as though he had nothing to do with it.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky • The Greatest Works of Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment + The Brother's Karamazov + The Idiot + Notes from Underground + The Gambler + Demons (The Possessed / The Devils)
Bolbol had worked hard to gain the trust of his neighborhood. The details on his identity card marked him out for suspicion; for four years now, similar details had spelled catastrophe for many others. Thousands of people disappeared without a trace, simply for being born in areas controlled by the opposition, just as many regime supporters had dis
... See moreKhaled Khalifa • Death Is Hard Work

Even after the ringing stopped, the sound of the bell lingered in the indoor evening gloom like dust floating in the air.
Jay Rubin • The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel (Vintage International)
The story has made us expect this, because, so far, we have not seen Olenka consider and then reject someone—whomever Chekhov introduced, she loved. But Chekhov asks (is alert to the value of asking), “Okay, but what if she doesn’t settle for Trot?” This sort of narrative alertness is one of Chekhov’s prime gifts. That is, he’s alert to the full po
... See moreGeorge Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
Bolbol didn’t ask him why he didn’t go home; he was afraid of the answer. On an earlier occasion, trying to make small talk in a taxi, he had been unwise enough to ask the driver when his shift was over and he could go home, but the driver had sneered and described his house in Zamalka in detail, including the fact that it had been bombed and his w
... See moreKhaled Khalifa • Death Is Hard Work
I found myself shaking his hand warmly. Minutes later I was out on the street. A boy walked splay-footed across a public lawn, nudging a soccer ball before him. A second kid sat on the grass, taking off his socks by grabbing the heels and yanking. How literary, I thought peevishly. Streets thick with the details of impulsive life as the hero ponder
... See moreDon DeLillo • White Noise
The old woman’s principal heir, however, turned out to be an honest man, the provincial marshal of nobility of that province,1 Yefim Petrovich Polenov.