Sublime
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In his novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy writes, of the terminally ill Ivan: “The syllogism . . . ‘Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,’ had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. . . . He was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from
... See moreGeorge Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
WILLIAM HAD BEGUN TO WORRY THAT HE NO LONGER SPARKED JOY IN his wife and that she would give him to Goodwill. It was alarmingly easy to picture. His wife would thank him for his service and then drop him off at the donation center, the one behind the store with the blankly sinister roll-up doors. Goodwill would take him in and William would live ou
... See moreKatherine Heiny • Games and Rituals
The Paper Millionaire, by some Arab-turned-Englishman named Roger Shashoua. He sat
Tom Wolfe • A Man in Full: A Novel
But he didn’t want to remember all the times his father had doted on Lydia but stared at him with disappointment flaring in his eyes, all the times their mother had praised Lydia but looked over and past and through him, as if he were made of air. He wanted to savor the long-awaited letter, the promise of getting away at last, a new world waiting a
... See moreCeleste Ng • Everything I Never Told You
The lecture’s audience consists of bald solid thick-wristed men over 50 who all look like the kind of guy who rises to CEO a company out of that company’s engineering dept. instead of some fancy MBA program.
David Foster Wallace • A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
brought him into the lobby, signed him in, and together we waited for a turn with one of the counselors. He sat in a cheap black plastic chair, staring catatonically at the institutional blue walls. An hour passed. He began to fidget. Two hours passed. His brow furrowed; his face clouded. Three hours passed. The tears started. Four hours passed. He
... See moreNeil Strauss • The Game
“Within your secrets lies your sickness,” Dr. Talbott had said to me when I talked to him long after David’s death. If David never sustained a lasting recovery, it was because he never let go of his secret, there were some bars that never came down. His secret is still with him. He still walks alone.
Abraham Verghese • The Tennis Partner: A Doctor's Story of Friendship and Loss
Once there was a poor man who couldn’t support his only son any more.