Currently reading: Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner, ed. Edward M. Burns. Two volumes, nearly 2000 pages. Lots of academic and literary gossip punctuated by extended passages of intellectual fireworks. When it’s good it’s great. It will take me a long time to read it; I have made a pledge to myself to be patient. Burns made the decision to annotate everything — there must be 250 pages of notes here — but he still manages to leave out some things that need to be explained, and fails to correct many misspellings while also “correcting” spellings that were right. Moreover, from time to time he will add a note referring the reader to a letter that isn’t here, or is misdated and therefore unfindable. I can’t blame him: the task was immense and he made it immenser than it needed to be, so the opportunities for error number in the thousands. I’m sure I would’ve done worse. Still, one must come to this prepared to be often confused, or brought up short by editorial mistakes. Posts will be forthcoming. 📚