“Johnson is wise, Boswell foolish; Johnson warns and abstains, Boswell plunges; Johnson is rather a great man writing than a greatwriter, Boswell is a great writer and an ordinary man; and they are two of a kind, abysmal melancholics and compulsive socializers, afraid of solitude and afraid of death and dissolution, victims of themselves, meant for each other, needing each other, needing evidence and arguments (Boswell is a lawyer, Johnson magisterially dictates to him some of his briefs), making beautiful models of rational discourse out of the useful substance of all they know.” KnowsMenWritingKindTwoBeautifulFriendshipWiseSolitudeModelsOrdinaryEvidenceArgumentVictimLawyerFoolishRationalSubstanceGreat MenDiscourseJohnsonPlungeGreat WritersOrdinary ManDissolutionAfraid Of Death Author:Marvin Mudrick
“Boswell's Johnson is the word made flesh... an extemporaneous man talking himself into the thick of every occasion (in a world ofoccasions if nothing else) and therefore no monument at all but all that can be saved of a man alive in the pages of a book.” IfsMenWorldMadeBookTalkingAlivePagesFleshSavedOccasionsThickMonumentJohnsonPortraitureEvery Occasion Book:Books are Not Life, But Then, what Is? Source: Books are Not Life, But Then, what Is?
“Life direct...is what Flaubert and Joyce have convinced themselves the man may never get quite clear of but the artist has nothing to do with. What they can't admit is that t is overrated: which artists, faking and fumbling it together out of spit and toothpicks, should know best of all.” KnowsMenShouldMayTogetherArtistClearHe ManDirectConvincedSpitOverratedJoyceToothpicks Author:Marvin Mudrick
