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#88032 11/29/02 02:34 PM
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tsuwm Offline OP
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I find the following in the New York Review of Books archives:

The cult of the same obtains in American letters, and if you don't regard Henry James and Fitzgerald with "holy assinity," you can't be any good yourself.

do you think this is just a(nother*) typo for asininity (which belabors the normal sense), or is this a *really obscure word?

*google gets a few dozen hits, almost all of which are obvious typos


#88033 11/29/02 02:48 PM
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If there is anything Henry James and Fitzgerald had in common, it was not asininity. I can't
see that term fitting either of them. Incidentally, is there only one Fitzgerald?


#88034 11/29/02 02:53 PM
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tsuwm Offline OP
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the quote is very much out of context, but I gather that it is the cult that treats James and Fitzgerald with "holy assinity". (you could google the quote to see the rant in its entire asininity.)


#88035 11/29/02 03:10 PM
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In reply to:

Incidentally, is there only one Fitzgerald?


Well, Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda S. Fitzgerald, tried her hand at writing for a while.


#88036 11/29/02 03:16 PM
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or maybe whoever wrote the article waf very old-ftyle and (really ftretching it here!) used "s" where s/he meant to ufe "f"....

okay, okay, I know it waf the other way around! but "holy affinity" just makef fo much more fenfe in thif context! doefn't it?!


#88037 11/29/02 07:51 PM
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Incidentally, is there only one Fitzgerald?

Oh, yes, Dr Bill - the only Fitzgerald is he who translated, from the Persian, the Rubayait of Omar Khayyam




#88038 11/29/02 08:08 PM
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the only Fitzgerald is he who translated, from the Persian

I don't think Edward counts for very much in the field of American letters.


#88039 11/29/02 08:13 PM
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And much as wine has played the Infidel, And robbed me of my coat of honor, well
I wonder oft what the vintners buy, One half so precious as the stuff the sell.


#88040 11/29/02 10:09 PM
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Good question your "assinity" question. I think that he meant exactly what he wrote and deliberately misspelled for impact.

But I think a better question is...

What was Mister tsuwm doing reading a October 12, 1967 letter to the New York Times Review of Books from an obscure author complaining about an unfavorable review of his latest obscure book written by an even more obscure book reviewer?

Lonesome?



Letter : AJAX'S SHEEP
By Edward Dahlberg, Reply by Robert M. Adams
In response to "Crier in the Wilderness" (August 24, 1967)





#88041 11/30/02 04:04 AM
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tsuwm Offline OP
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>What was Mister tsuwm doing...

approximately and exactly what mr. minderbinder was doing in expiscating the reference, I'd wager....


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