An Honest Ghost
Page 10
But most men: Alan Bennett Writing Home 64
Fear tweaks the: Christopher Isherwood A Single Man 9
So David tells: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 11
Naturally: Merle Miller On Being Different 16
Though blue, the: Albert Camus The Plague 36
Very strange: David Lynch Lost Highway 17
To look at: Susan Sontag Styles of Radical Will 10
4.
“I suppose my: Ivy Compton-Burnett Parents and Children
7
“I know you: Andre Tellier Twilight Men 72
From the first: Thomas Bernhard The Loser 10
“I wonder why: Ivy Compton-Burnett Parents and
Children 17
Few emotions are: W. G. Sebald On the Natural History of
Destruction 129
She sounded slightly: Colm Toibin The Master 252
Her voice softened: Heinrich Boll The Silent Angel 139
She was capable: Wendy Moffat A Great Unrecorded
History 7
“Oh, well-behaved: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 18
A hard-bitten: Virginia Woolf Orlando 40
She’s insane and: Mary Jo Bang Inferno 18
At this very: Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day 48
Poor Eleanor, how: Edward St Aubyn At Last 104
When we reflect: Shunryu Suzuki Zen Mind, Beginner’s
Mind 39
In a flurry: Susanna Pinney, ed. I’ll Stand by You: Letters of
Sylvia Townsend Warner 13
Her beauty seemed: Andrew Holleran Nights In Aruba 34
“In this heat,”: Ronald Firbank Three More Novels 55
She was on: W. Somerset Maugham The Razor’s Edge 212
It was a: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will Show 85
New York on: Anita Brookner Look at Me 41
There all the: James Joyce Ulysses 37
She was silent: Jenny McPhee A Man of No Moon 268
Her unassailable assumption: Jane Gardam Faith Fox 63
She often refers: Peter Cameron Someday This Pain Will Be
Useful To You 57
But her beauty: Bill Pronzini The Hidden 41
Her feelings came: NOON 2007 ed., Diane Williams 160
She stressed her: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 257
Naturally she is: Gertrude Stein Wars I Have Seen 146
“David,” she said: Honoré de Balzac Lost Illusions 505
Bravo!: Lydie Salvayre Portrait of the Artist as a
Domesticated Animal 179
She stood there: H. Rider Haggard She 161
I am but: H. Rider Haggard She 187
In any case: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 159
Anxiety like a: Leo Lerman The Grand Surprise 511
Anxiety being the: David Markson Wittgenstein’s Mistress
72
I expected sympathy: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 239
5.
The weather had: Joris-Karl Huysmans Against Nature 166
It was hot: Theodore Dreiser An American Tragedy 514
I spent that: James Lasdun The Horned Man 161
I was lying: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 75
I read it: Shohaku Okumura Living By Vow 133
The only fact: Denis Donoghue American Classics 205
I like to: David Lehman, ed. Great American Prose Poems
216
There is no: Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 48
Above me, in: H. G. Wells The Time Machine 118
Here we are: Celine Death on the Installment Plan 15
Take a few: B. K. S. Iyengar Light on Yoga 22
I felt naked: H. G. Wells The Time Machine 27
So I enter: B. K. S. Lyengar Light on Yoga 394
In many respects: Tim Dean Unlimited Intimacy 195
What stumps me: Lucia Perillo I’ve Heard the Vultures
Singing 18
Everything was becoming: Georges Bataille The Blue of
Noon 84
I kept having: Gordon Lish Zimzum 75
Why do we: Slavoj Zizek Did Somebody Say
Totalitarianism? 196
I used to: Robert Bolaño By Night in Chile 1
But gay men: Edmund White City Boy 80
We always worry: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 53
I am almost: Ludwig Wittgenstein Notebooks 1914-1916 31
The razor-sharp: Robert Bolaño Amulet 49
6.
My decision to: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 385
I lacked both: Alex Ross Listen to This 7
I am forty: Kenneth Koch 1000 Avant-Garde Plays 19
Beneath everything else: Edmund White Nocturnes for the
King of Naples 88
The place was: Graham Greene The Heart of the Matter 8
The problem is: Iannis Xenakis Formalized Music 29
I opened the: Teju Cole Open City 164
Generally, even then: David Markson Wittgenstein’s
Mistress 240
A lost soul: Robert Frost The Notebooks of Robert Frost 373
That’s me: Sherrie Eldridge 20 Things Adopted Kids Wish
Their Adoptive Parents Knew 169
The psychological feeling: Theodor Adorno The Stars
Down to Earth 128
I dropped David: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 211
“Did you know: H. Rider Haggard She 81
Several times he: Colm Toibin The Master 248
David extended his: Carl Van Vechten Parties 173
“I’m so sorry: Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence 62
The things one: David Markson Wittgenstein’s Mistress 53
“I am glad: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 12
The irony of: Charles Kaiser 1968 in America 239
“How are you: Alfred Chester The Exquisite Corpse 49
He does not: Giacomo Casanova History of My Life 931
“I am the: Andre Tellier Twilight Men 24
There was a: Walter Kirn My Hard Bargain 69
But soon this: Huysmans Against Nature 207
What, if anything: Harold Bloom Hamlet: Poem Unlimited
86
What was the: H. Rider Haggard She 96
Who will speak: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 54
“Which cathedral do: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 37
A moan burst: Carl Van Vechten Parties 130
He was handsome: Henry James The Aspern Papers
and The Turn of the Screw 149
His broad shoulders: Edmund White My Lives 222
“But you have: John Ashbery April Galleons 24
You are too: Gore Vidal Two Sisters 14
It’s too serious: Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence 105
Amused, I nodded: Colette Pure and Impure 15
“I may be: Rachel Ingalls Mrs. Caliban 7
We will see: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 186
“Fortunately, I know: J. D. Salinger Franny and Zooey 157
“I’m interested in: David McConnell The Silver Hearted
122
“Ah.”: David McConnell The Silver Hearted 123
His leisure hours: Alex Ross Listen to This 126
There is, of: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 19
He was young: Virginia Woolf Orlando 28
And so on: Roland Barthes Reader xiii
He was a: James Joyce Portait of the Artist as a Young Man
192
Take care of: Susanna Pinney, ed. I’ll Stand by You: Letters
of Sylvia Townsend Warner 19
Do you love: Kenneth Koch 1000 Avant-Garde Plays 19
7.
The cuckoo came: John Ashbery and James Schuyler A
Nest of Ninnies 40
It was a: James Joyce Dubliners 31
Summer was a: Rudy Wilson The Red Truck 129
Inwardness, calm, solitude: Roland Barthes Mourning
Diary 100
No, that’s too: Merle Miller On Being Different 19
Silence: Vladimir Nabokov
Laughter in the Dark 192
At one point: Ron Padgett Joe 24
I must photograph: Charles Henri Ford Like Water from a
Bucket 153
Little ineffectual unquenchable: E.M. Forster A Passage to
India 120
It was the: Virginia Woolf Orlando 85
He was looking: Thomas Bernhard “The Joiner” German
Short Stories ed., David Constantine 263
He is not: John Banville The Infinities 9
Solitude had acted: J-K. Huysmans Against Nature 84
At school, he: Edgar Saltus Mr. Incoul’s Misadventure 4
The other children: Edmund White Genet xv
In the meantime: Thomas Bernhard The Loser 16
There was an: David Wojnarowicz Memories That Smell
Like Gasoline 27
He’s a beautiful: James Blake The Joint 167
It hurts to: John Waters Role Models 294
I have often: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 295
I admit I: Edmund White Genet 100
(In Wilde’s phrase: Roland Barthes Reader xvi
Similarly, I sometimes: David Levithan The Full Spectrum
172
We can only: Ivy Compton-Burnett Darkness and Day 8
8.
By Thanksgiving, Joe: Ron Padgett Joe 87
He stayed at: Filip Noterdaeme The Autobiography of
Daniel J. Isengart 73
He asked me: James Blake The Joint 167
“Even if there: Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life 149
I don’t want: Sam Massey Return of the Greek 47
I am like: Conor Cruise O’Brien Camus 29
We’re going to: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 25
Salvation lies in: Sarah Bakewell How to Live 35
“Can’t you smell: J-K Huysmans Against Nature 118
“What is it?: Brenda McCreight Parenting Your Adopted
Older Child 32
I suddenly thought: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 3
He was the: D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers 85
What had been: Gioia Timpanelli Sometimes the Soul 21
It was like: Franz Kafka The Castle 27
“Yes, yes, I: Graham Greene The Heart of the Matter 31
I feel in: D. H. Lawrence Selected Letters 260
You must have: Max Ewing Going Somewhere 79
You’re not angry: O. Henry The Four Million 67
“No,” said Joe: Charles Dickens Barnaby Rudge 105
I want his: James Joyce Ulysses 46
“I think that: Sam Massey Return of the Greek 65
Anyway, you’ll get: Mark Merlis American Studies 168
“Will you?” said: Charles Dickens Barnaby Rudge 584
“What is that: John Banville The Infinities 11
“Men are such: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 53
Score one for: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 55
The world was: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark
192
The nature of: Andrezj Walicki A History of Russian
Thought 24
But in all: James Blake The Joint 313
I get bored: Umberto Eco The Mysterious Flame of Queen
Loana 327
This is the: Alan Bennett Writing Home xiii
To me there: Ivy Compton-Burnett Darkness and Day 14
In the course: J-K Huysmans Against Nature 118
But the city: Gilbert Highet Poets in a Landscape 162
“We are both: Charles Henri Ford Like Water From a
Bucket 214 He was no: Edmund White Rimbaud 35
“You’re probably wondering: Plato Gorgias 12
He begins to: Giles and Miller, eds. The Arts of
Contemplative Care 75
Joe looked at: Charles Dickens Great Expectations 559
Every heartstring is: Edmund White Rimbaud 21
It would be: W. H. Auden Forewords and Afterwords 292
It took him: Rudyard Kipling Kim 118
The eloquence of: Dickens Barnaby Rudge 632
The silence speaks: James Joyce Finnegans Wake 10
Like a big: Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life 2
He knew I: Lincoln Kirstein By With To and From 70
Thank God for: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 5
You can count: Sherrie Eldridge 20 Things Adopted Kids
Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew 143
Everybody knows you: John Waters Role Models 264
“I’m the man: D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers 84
He knocked at: Charles Kaiser The Gay Metropolis 21
“I am!”: Charles Dickens Great Expectations 164
But many questions: Hungarian Photographs 26
Either way, I: George W. S. Trow Bullies 4
9.
David watched my: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 101
“You hear what: Charles Dickens Barnaby Rudge 10
We must be: Charles Dickens Barnaby Rudge 109
You’re so reluctant: Peter Cameron Someday This Pain Will
Be Useful To You 55
Am I upsetting: J. D. Salinger Franny and Zooey 196
He looked over: Sarah Schulman The Child 19
“Oh, you’ll see: E. F. Benson David Blaize 54
Here he poured: Virginia Woolf Orlando 89
Joe could only: Charles Dickens Barnbaby Rudge 633
“You’re useless: Binnie Kirshenbaum Pure Poetry 55
He told him: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 12
“It’s not my: Thomas Bernhard The Loser 14
Don’t we all: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03 68
We identify with: Tim Dean Unlimited Intimacy 23
David gave a: E. F. Benson David Blaize 31
He crawled back: John Banville Doctor Copernicus 85
Words, words, words: William Shakespeare Hamlet (Yale)
60
Every morning: Thomas Bernhard Prose 125
He looked forward: Colm Toibin The Master 233
Well, never mind: Plato Gorgias 13
We observe our: Thomas Dumm Loneliness as a Way of
Life 98
10.
Back in the: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 385
Even the self-deprecating: Joseph P. Lash: Eleanor and
Franklin 179
We spent the: Robert Bolaño Amulet 105
We discovered (very: Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions
68
Eleanor gave a: Ivy Compton-Burnett Parents and Children
69
She was wearing: John Fowles The Magus 14
It was that: James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man 191
I viewed her: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 40
She flung herself: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark
62
“What a city: John Ashbery Flow Chart 189
Paris is the: Charles Henri Ford Like Water from a Bucket
208
When I look: David Lehman, ed. Great American Prose
Poems 128
This is in: Conor Cruise O’Brien Camus 78
“Is it a: J. M. Coetzee Waiting for the Barbarians 84
“Do you know: Gioia Timpanelli Sometimes the Soul 151
As if: Thomas Dumm Loneliness as a Way of Life 34
I rose from: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 42
I’ve had it: Robert Bolaño Amulet 35
Let them think: John Francis Hunter The Gay Insider 26
But in France: Milan Kundera Testaments Betrayed 181
This is real: Adam Thirlwell Delighted States 88
Swarms of crows: Franz Kafka The Castle 11
The fact is: Huysmans Against Nature 181
To me it: William Shakespeare Hamlet (Yale) 63
“Well,” she says: Justin Taylor Everything Here is the Best
Thing Ever 117
She moved in: Jean Genet Querelle 152
She was as: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 11
She was bizarre: John Fowles The Mag
us 14
“No means no: Bill Pronzini The Hidden 44
Perhaps you can: Theopile Gautier Mademoiselle de
Maupin 97
“If you’re hungry: Blair Niles Strange Brother 130
She went back: Rachel Ingalls Mrs. Caliban 63
Her thoughts were: Djuna Barnes Nightwood 76
She is inexhaustibly: Theopile Gautier Mademoiselle de
Maupin 99
And though thee: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will
Show 87
Her eyes sparkled: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 8
What can I: Charles Burkhart I. Compton-Burnett 50
She did not: Carson McCullers Member of the Wedding 22
I understand: Plato Collected Dialogues 619
A woman whom: Colette Pure and Impure 43
I had been: Adam Phillips Equals 122
To poeticize oneself: Søren Kierkegaard Diary of a Seducer
112
It is something: Jacques Lacan Four Fundamental Concepts
of Psychoanalysis 113
She turned: H. Rider Haggard She 231
“What have you: Henry Green Doting 42
She repeated all: Neil Bartlett Ready to Catch Him 198
For if there: Ronald Firbank Three More Novels 52
Imagine what that: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 144
“You think of: Jenny McPhee A Man of No Moon 208
She was really: Lydie Salvayre Company of Ghosts 15
I am nonviolent: John Francis Hunter Gay Insider 27
Luckily, the: Glen Baxter Returns to Normal (no
page numbers)
It’s still too: John Ashbery April Galleons 23
“I wish I: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 49
The indifference in: Jorges Luis Borges Collected Fictions
284
What makes us: Adam Phillips On Balance 267
The evening ended: Glen Baxter Returns to Normal (no
page numbers)
The great revolutions: Justin O’Brien Camus 34
If, as John: Adam Phillips On Balance 93
11.
Now that the: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 210
At night this: Alfred Chester Looking for Genet 172
Cars were rare: Justin Taylor Everything Here is the Best
Thing Ever 3
The black cattle: Glenway Wescott Continual Lessons 175
Night music: Marlene Van Niekerk Agaat 2
Most of the: Clive Fisher Hart Crane 251
But the people: Elizabeth Gilbert Last American Man 215
The high cold: James Joyce Dubliners 33
2:00-5:00: Susan Sontag Reborn 17
The pen was: John Ashbery April Galleons 1
I could go: Joshua Mehigan The Optimist 58
I wrote about: Robert Bolaño By Night in Chile 84