Janet Coleman ci racconta gli anni dell'inizio alla New York Review of Books. "I arrived in December 1963, before the NYR had been on the newsstands a year. I was twenty-one. ... Through William Phillips and Phillip Rahv, the founding rabbis of the
New York intellectual press, I also knew the work (and phone numbers)
of the whole Upper West Side of critics newly prominent on the writing
roster of the NYR.
From Rahv, the more admired of the partners (Saul Bellow called Phillips a “devious rat”), I’d learned the most important factor in producing our line of work. “Philip,” I’d asked, “What’s the key to great critical writing?” “Sensibility, Janet,” he said. You would never guess from his jackknife prose that Philip Rahv spoke like a Russian bear schooled at City College for a Group Theater production of a Chekhov play. “Sensabitty, Janet,” was what he actually said. “Sensabitty.” nybooks.
From Rahv, the more admired of the partners (Saul Bellow called Phillips a “devious rat”), I’d learned the most important factor in producing our line of work. “Philip,” I’d asked, “What’s the key to great critical writing?” “Sensibility, Janet,” he said. You would never guess from his jackknife prose that Philip Rahv spoke like a Russian bear schooled at City College for a Group Theater production of a Chekhov play. “Sensabitty, Janet,” was what he actually said. “Sensabitty.” nybooks.
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