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Here is a convention up for debate, one in the process of becoming visible: in an essay on the pathetic fallacy, author Charles Baxter argues that setting in literary realist fiction should less often reflect the protagonist’s inner state. Baxter has seen too much rain when the hero is sad, too man…

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Craft is a set of expectations.

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Expectations are not universal; they are standardized. It is like what we say about wine or espresso: we acquire “taste.” With each story we read, we draw on and contribute to our knowledge of what a story is or should be. This is true of cultural stan…

BY THE MOONLIGHT, IN THE DISTANCE

By the moonlight, in the distance,
A sailboat on the river
Sails peacefully by.
What does it reveal?

I don’t know, but my being
Feels suddenly strange,
And I dream without seeing
The dreams that I have.

What anguish engulfs me?
What love can’t I…

GOD

At times I’m the god I carry in myself,
And then I’m the god, the believer and the prayer
And the ivory image
In which this god is forgotten.

At times I’m no more than an atheist
Of this god I am when exalted.
I see in myself an entire sky,
And it’s only a vast and hollow sky.
…

I got off the train
And said goodbye to the man I’d met.
We’d been together for eighteen hours
And had a pleasant conversation,
Fellowship in the journey,
And I was sorry to get off, sorry to leave
This chance friend whose name I never learned.
I felt my eyes water with tears . . .
Every fa…