Don't Save Anything: The Uncollected Writings of James Salter(83)

Imagine that in time the society will divide into readers, who want information and don’t much attend to the form in which it comes, and Readers, who want music, implication, wit, transformation, resistance. You can guess who’ll be in charge. The Readers will shrink to a circle as sealed as the Druids’, and as irrelevant and doomed. At least the tree folk lost out to Rome and Christianity. Where’s the glory in Reading your fate on a pulsing blue screen, or in a friend’s shrug and blank stare?

Talk given at Woodrow Wilson Center October 25, 1995





Acknowledgments


Grateful acknowledgment is made to the books and journals in which the pieces in this volume were originally published.

“Some for Glory, Some for Praise.” In Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction, edited by Will Blythe. Back Bay Books, 1999.

“The Writing Teacher.” The New York Times Sunday Book Review, March 8, 2005.

“Odessa, Mon Amour.” Narrative Magazine, Spring 2009.

“Like a Retired Confidential Agent, Graham Greene Hides Quietly in Paris.” People, January 19, 1976.

“An Old Magician Named Nabokov Lives and Writes in Splendid Exile.” People, March 17, 1975.

“From Lady Antonia’s Golden Brow Springs Another Figure of History.” People, February 24, 1975.

“Ben Sonnenberg Jr.” Men’s Journal, May 2001.

“Life for Author Han Suyin Has Been a Sometimes Hard But Always Many Splendored Thing.” People, November 8, 1976.

“D’Annunzio, the Immortal Who Died.” The Paris Review, Fall/Winter 1978.

“Cool Heads.” Joe, 1999.

“An Army Mule Named Sid Berry Takes Command at the Point.” People, September 2, 1974.

“Ike the Unlikely.” Esquire, December 1983.

“Younger Women, Older Men.” Esquire, March 1992.

“Karyl and Me.” Modern Maturity, April–May–June 1997.

“When Evening Falls.” GQ, February 1992.

“Talk of the Town on Bill Clinton.” The New Yorker, October 5, 1998.

“The Definitive Downhill: Toni Sailer.” The New York Times, November 7, 1982.

“At the Foot of Olympus: Jarvik, Kolff, and DeVries.” Typescript, May 26, 1981.

“Man Is His Own Star: Royal Robbins.” Quest, March–April 1978.

“Racing for the Cup.” Geo, December 1982.

“Getting High.” Life, August 1979.

“The Alps.” National Geographic Traveler, October 1999.

“Offering Oneself to the Fat Boys.” Outside, December 1995.

“Passionate Falsehoods.” The New Yorker, August 4, 1997.

“The First Women Graduate.” Life, May 1980.

“Almost Pure Joy.” The Washington Post Magazine, August 13, 1995.

“Eat, Memory.” The New York Times Magazine, January 2, 2005.

“Paris Nights.” Food & Wine, October 1998.

“Chez Nous.” European Travel and Life, Spring 1990.

“Once and Future Queen.” Rocky Mountain Magazine, 1994.

“They Call It Paradise.” Geo, November 1981.

“Snowy Nights in Aspen.” Colorado Ski Country USA, 1997–98.

“Notes from Another Aspen.” Aspen Magazine, Winter 1996–97.

“Once Upon a Time, Literature. Now What?” In Writers on Writing, Collected Essays from The New York Times, introduction by John Darnton. Times Books, 2002.

“Words’ Worth.” Talk given at Woodrow Wilson Center, October 25, 1995.