Quick question. When writing about the people you met in Graduate school did were you ever concerned how they might eventually one day interpret it? I am sure that by this point they have read your book and read the passages concerning them. Some of what you say about these friends and peers is quite unflattering at times and simultaneously hilarious and fascinating. How did they react? Does writing about people still living or that you know personally change your relationships with them? I know these may sound like silly questions but I am dying to know!

thanks,

A

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/newsletter/la-ca-elif-batuman14-2010feb14,0,5740851.story

This is a superb article. Stunning, really. I’m writing to tell you this and also to ask if I may quote you in my own book, Felicity and Barbara Pym, (May 2010) which an epistolary work (fiction and non-fiction) about the very distinctions you make in your article. My conclusions differ slightly since I would not have given the raw conglomerate of scribblers huddled around the space heater in the trailer repute as “writers” and I take great exception to what generally passes as a university education in English Literature in 80% of universities today, but I make similar points. Having been simultaneously Writer in Residence and Lecturer (Associate Professor level in US terms) at two British universities, I experienced the dichotomies you describe so beautifully, with full force. My MFA and PhD studies were engaging. Both were unnecessary to me as a writer but they did not harm me. My five year honours BA in Literature was absolutely essential. And I am a great proponent of interdisciplinarity. If I may send you the portion of your article in context (about a page of my book in which one (long) sentence of yours would appear, properly acknowledged of course) I would appreciate it. I can be contacted at harrisonsolow@alumnae.mills.edu or via The Red Room as above.
Kind regards,
Harrison Solow (female, despite the name)

Confessions of an Accidental Literary Scholar
The Chronicle Review
February 7, 2010

http://wiredcampus.chronicle.com/article/Chasing-the-Word-a-Writer-in/63882/

http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/The-Possessed-by-Elif-Batuman-Book-Review