"we do survive every moment, after all, except the last one."
i think "the centaur" is his best book, tho the rabbit novels are close behind. mainly, he was a "public intellectual," a creature that's nearly extinct at this point in time. his writing on kierkegaard(a soul mate of his)is deeply felt & profoundly edifying. i never agreed w/his art criticism or his religion but this guy knew how to think. at his best, even if you disagreed, he was engaging & challenging & provocative. three pretty good traits as a thinker & when he brought them to bear in his fiction, there are only a few who can match him. beautiful, subtle, & clever prose. the breadth of his interests was humbling & his engagements w/them always illuminating.
there's a scene in "rabbit, run" where the eponymous character, an ex-jock who's spent most of the novel messing his messy life up even more, is out golfing w/a friend. he's trying to explain in his odd way what he's "really after" in life & failing to do so, turns & hits his ball in a perfect arc onto the green, "that's it," he screams exhultantly, "that's it!"
indeed. that is it.
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