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Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays

Smith Zadie (EN)

Giorgio de Chirico painted what he called “metaphysical town squares.” They are full of exquisite renderings of shadow.

The intense colors of a Soutine. In fact, colors generally. Count them.

In volume five of A la recherché du temps perdu, the novelist Bergotte dies while standing in a gallery, looking at Vermeer’s View of Delft. These are his last words: “That’s how I ought to have written, my last books are too dry, I ought to have gone over them with a few layers of color, made my language precious in itself.”

Just before a partial eclipse, the wind rises. And another thing happens, too: shadow bands (also known as flying shadows) appear, making the ground look like the bottom of a swimming pool.

Solar eclipse. The Nazca Lines in Peru. “Eye in the sky.”

“The screen breaths mint”? A confessional box. A priest chewing gum.

From the OED:

Prone

a. ORIGIN. French prône, the grating or railing separating the chancel of a church from the nave, where notices were given and addresses delivered.

b. Ecclesiastical history. An exhortation or homily delivered in church. Also, prayers, exhortations, etc., attached to a sermon.

c. Adjective & adverb. Directed or sloping downward. Also loosely, descending steeply or vertically, headlong.

d. Facing downward; bending forward and downward; lying face downward or on the belly; spec. (of the hand or forelimb) with the palm downwards or backwards and the radius and ulna crossed. Later also loosely, lying flat.

From the OED:

Apse, Apsis

Astronomy: Either of the two points in the elliptical orbit of a planet or other body at which it is respectively nearest to and furthest from the primary about which it revolves. Architecture. A large semicircular or polygonal structure, often roofed with a semi-dome, situated esp. at the end of the choir, nave, or an aisle of a church.

A song by The Waterboys

C. S. Lewis. Shadowlands

A Grief Observed. Death

Acts 17:24: God dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

Acts 7:48: Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands?

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE 1962-2008

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Zora Neale Hurston: What Does Soulful Mean?” was originally conceived as an introduction for the Virago edition of Their Eyes Were Watching God and appeared subsequently in a revised version in The Guardian. “Middlemarch and Everybody” and “Hepburn and Garbo” were first published in The Guardian. “E. M. Forster: Middle Manager,” “F. Kafka, Everyman” and “Two Directions for the Novel” were published in The New York Review of Books. “Speaking in Tongues” was given as the 2008 Robert B. Silvers Lecture at the New York Public Library and published in a revised version by The New York Review of Books. “That Crafty Feeling” was given as a lecture at Columbia University, commissioned by Ben Marcus, and later published in The Believer. A revised version appears here. “One Week in Liberia” was the fruit of a trip organized and funded by Oxfam. It was published by The Observer. “At the Multiplex, 2006” and “Notes on Oscar Weekend” were published by The Sunday Telegraph. “Accidental Hero” appeared in a short version in The Sunday Telegraph and appears in full here. “Smith Family Christmas” was commissioned by The New York Times and “Dead Man Laughing” was published by The New Yorker. “Rereading Barthes and Nabokov” began life as a lecture, given at Harvard University, although it has been revised so extensively almost nothing of the original remains.

I am grateful to my editors, Simon Prosser and A

My greatest debt, as ever, is to Nick Laird, my best reader and fiercest editor. Your work on this book-and support of its author-were essential.

INDEX

Aczel, Edward

Adams, J. Donald

Adam’s Rib (film)

Adomitis, Dan

“Adult World” (Wallace)

Alix, Patrick

Allen, Woody

American Colonization Society

Americo-Liberians (Congos)

Amis, Kingsley

Amis, Martin

Another Country (Baldwin)

Antonioni, Michelangelo

Apicella, Tina

Aristotle

Arnold, Matthew

Ash Wednesday (Eliot)

Astaire, Fred

Atrocity Exhibition, The (Ballard)

Auden, W. H.

Austen, Jane

authenticity

Author

death of

lack of control of

as modern figure

privilege of

Autograph Man, The (Smith)

Bacall, Lauren

Baez, Joan

Baldwin, James

Ballard, J. G.

Balzac, Honoré de

Bana, Eric

Barth, John

Barthelme, Donald

Barthes, Roland

as left wing

on modernity of concept of author