What Saul Bellow Thought About the Fourth Estate

‎"I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists; we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August."

-Saul Bellow, in a 1984 letter to Philip Roth, after a "crooked little slut" at People interviewed him and "turned my opinions inside out, cut out the praises and made it all sound like a disavowal, denunciation, and excommunication" of Roth. The journalist is now a director at NYU. (Via The New Yorker)

Note to self: Strive never to choose quotes from an interview that will make any of my sources feel how the author of Mr. Sammler's Planet felt while writing this letter.

Music obsession of the month

Via my New Zealand-wandering sister: