Standing amid the tan, excited post-Christmas crowd at the Southwest Florida Regional Airport, Rabbit Angstrom has a funny sudden feeling that what h… - John Updike

He showed the world what can be done against the odds, against a superpower. He showed — and this is where Vietnam and Iraq come in, that in a war between an imperialist occupier and the people who actually live there, the people will eventually prevail. They know the terrain. They have more at stake. They have nowhere else to go.

"I Missed His Book, But I Read His Name"

Though authors are a dreadful clan
To be avoided if you can,
I'd like to meet the Indian,
M. Anantanarayanan.

I picture him as short and tan.
We'd meet, perhaps, in Hindustan.
I'd say, with admirable elan ,
"Ah, Anantanarayanan — I've heard of you. The Times once ran
A notice on your novel, an
Unusual tale of God and Man."
And Anantanarayanan

Would seat me on a lush divan
And read his name — that sumptuous span
Of 'a's and 'n's more lovely than
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan" — Aloud to me all day. I plan
Henceforth to be an ardent fan
of Anantanarayanan — M. Anantanarayanan.

Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works.