(with some minor edits, omissions, fake names, and notes in brackets for clarification)

One of Moby-Dick, Another of War & Peace

1. Four of the following passages are from Moby-Dick; one is an imitation by me. Can you spot the imitation?

And How It Downplays the Narrator’s Omniscience

In reading War & Peace, I noticed early on that Tolstoy likes the word “evidently”—or whatever the Russian equivalent may be—and that many…

Before I Move on to War & Peace

I finished Moby-Dick a few days ago and remain unsure what to say about it. I don’t love the book, though for the sake of its generally lively and often beautiful language (not to mention its literary…

On Conviction and Maturity