I'm most at home with writers
who are entirely inclined to
be known as having fashioned
the text I read of theirs. I
don't know how prevalent they
are, but I know them when I
run into them. Alexander Pope
strikes one as the epitome,
doesn't he, of this commit-
ment? A modest legacy of the
Renaissance. To be known by
one's texts is a risk, on the
other hand, which few men do
entertain, and until the im-
mediate present, has been an
endangerment to women. This
gives rise to a prejudice,
almost, against going so far.
Fashion is generous that way,
but at an interesting price.
It is not in season, just now.
This is a season of being
known atextually - and yet,
however, as literarily as
any couplet in Pope. We know
them in our living past, in
upheavals recurringly knock-
ing at the door of one's own
birthright. Again, this is a
season of confession, beyond
recent precedent but surely,
standing on its shoulders. In
this face, captured at a rally
in Ashburn, Virginia this week,
one doesn't see an aspiration
to be known as the inventor of
the text, but as its epigone.
Tiresome as it may be, for the
third time in seven days to say,
this is the image of this year's
upheaval, and it is impossible
to dismiss it as illegitimate.
I read it, you read it, and be-
yond question, it is plain. This
man needs to be answered, with-
out the degenerate reflexes of
a mind undisposed to read him.
How much more, shall I respect
Maxim Steklyanov
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