James Salter | The Art of Fiction |The Evolution Underground | Raymond Chandler | Brave Genius | Nabokov Upside Down | Tree Lines

NEW TITLES
The One Inside
"Her mouth opened and
I saw tiny animals escaping:
tiny animals trapped inside her all the time.
They flew out as though something might catch them and
drag them back to imprisonment.
I could feel them land on my face and
crawl thought my hair, searching for
a hiding place."
Word by Word
"She tells us about the special problems with S.
It is, to put it in the modern vernacular, the worst.
It is the longest letter in the book and
an absolute heart-breaker, because you can see
the end of the alphabet from it, and you know that
once you clear S, you are moving on to T-Z,
and half of those are barely even letters."
Brave Genius
"Sartre came into direct contact
with a menu from McDonald's restaurant,
and his condition worsened. He went into
a tonic-colonic seizure at the words le menu Happy Meal,
and when he reached En ce moment,
le double Cheese est lá, hypocapnia, aphasia,
and apraxia set in."
Raymond Chandler
The Detections of Totality
"Without magic, there is no art.
Without art, there is no idealism.
Without idealism, there is no integrity.
Without integrity, there is
nothing but production."
The World Broke in Two
"An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me:
the book of a self-taught working man,
& we all know how distressing they are,
how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, &
ultimately nauseating."
Nabokov Upside Down
"With the help of the janitor he screwed onto the side of the desk a pencil sharpener - - - that highly satisfying , highly philosophic instrument that goes ticonderoga ticonderoga feeding on the yellow finish and sweet wood, and ends up in a kind of soundlessly ethereal void as we all must"
Tree Lines
"I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. what avail forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map? Yet to draw a line is to facilitate memory."
The Art Fiction
García Márquez said one of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. He had spent monton a first paragraph, but when he got it. the rest was easy. He had the style, the tone, but the problem was how to start to convey it? The first paragraph was a sample of what the rest of the book would be.
The Evolution Underground
"According to official records
the subjects were 'volunteers' but you know about
volunteerism in the military: he stands in front of you
and asks for volunteers for a program that will
save American lives and he looks at you
and you know you are doomed."

GENERAL INDEX
Find here all 288 back-issues of RALPH,
including titles of books under review,
along with author, subject, and publisher - - -
plus links to readings, articles, and poems
that have appeared on-line here
since 1994.

Great Reviews from the Past
Churchill: The Unexpected Hero
"When meeting with King Ibn Saud,
being told that the King would not allow strong drink,
Churchill said that he understood the King's religion, but
my religion prescribed an absolute sacred rite smoking cigars
and drinking alcohol before, after, and if need be during
all meals and the intervals
between them.
High Noon in the Cold War
"Thank god, even at
the heights of those ten days of the crises,
we did not know the Strangelovian
horrors going on behind the scenes.
If we had, our general fears would
have been transformed into madness,
knowing that the end was
indeed at hand."
LETTERS
J. S. Bach & the Clinch Mountain Boys

ARTICLES
The Alumnus Magazine Blues
"Some years ago, I sent my death notice
to the alumni office of the college from which I graduated.
I told them that I had caught my head in the mangle, and therefore
was no longer among the living to receive news of homecoming weekends,
and letters dunning me for donations to each new college
fundraising campaign."
Mekong Delta Blues - - - IIThe return to Vietnam

READINGS
Was He Born Donald Tromp - - - or Donald Trunk?
"When we launched an extensive investigation
of the birth-records of D. Trump at Jamaica Hospital, New York,
we could not locate any documents bearing the president's name.
Indeed there was no record of a "Trump" during
the whole week of June 14, 1946."

Great Readings from the Past
Don Quixote, Sancho Panza and the Ghosts
"In a snuffling tone, he said,
'Sancho, thou seemest to be in great fear.'
'I am so,' answered the squire, 'but, how comes
your worship to perceive my fears now, more than ever?'
'Because, at present, thou smellest more than ever ---
and that not of amber,' replied the knight."

POETRY
Toes
"When I was small, I knew them well.
I counted on them up to ten
And put them in my mouth to tell
The larger from the lesser. Then
I loved them better than my ears,
My elbows, adenoids, and heart.
But with the swelling of the years
We drifted, toes and I, apart."