{"id":142499,"date":"2020-02-04T13:00:06","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T18:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=142499"},"modified":"2020-02-03T16:01:17","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T21:01:17","slug":"redux-knowing-it-would-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/02\/04\/redux-knowing-it-would-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: Knowing It Would End"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Charles Johnson in his office, with his grandson Emery, 2016.<\/p><\/div>\n

This week at The Paris Review<\/em>, we\u2019re preoccupied by questions of impermanence and longing. Read on for Charles Johnson\u2019s Art of Fiction interview<\/a>, Joy Williams\u2019s short story \u201cTricks<\/a>,\u201d and Alex Dimitrov\u2019s poem \u201cImpermanence<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe<\/a> to The Paris Review<\/em> and read the entire archive? You\u2019ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. And don\u2019t forget to listen to Season 2<\/a> of The Paris Review Podcast<\/em>!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charles Johnson, The Art of Fiction No. 239<\/a>
\nIssue no. 224 (Spring 2018)<\/em><\/p>\n

Take Marcus Aurelius\u2014Meditations<\/em> got me through Stony Brook University. I\u2019m a Ph.D. candidate, with the pressures of teaching undergraduates, passing my own graduate classes, my qualifying exam, and living in 1975 on my four-thousand-dollar assistantship, with a first child on the way, no job yet, and a second philosophical novel to complete that had to be more expansive than the first one. Meditations<\/em> got me through because Marcus Aurelius understood suffering, impermanence, and death almost as well as a Zen master. And Plato once said that philosophy is really preparation for death. I extend that wisdom to our very notion of the self as an enduring entity. You let go of the things that are simply unnecessary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tricks<\/a>
\nBy Joy Williams
\nIssue no. 90 (Winter 1983)<\/em><\/p>\n

The children ran outside, calling.<\/p>\n

Rosie beamed at Liberty. \u201cYou\u2019re a Christian, right? I bet, I mean, I can imagine it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in guilt and longing,\u201d Liberty admitted. \u201cConfession and continual defeat. The circle and the spiral.\u201d The words filled up the room pleasantly, like boulders.<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus could never have saved me from drugs. Jesus is dead.\u201d Rosie reflected sadly on this for a moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Impermanence<\/a>
\nBy Alex Dimitrov
\nIssue no. 227 (Winter 2018)<\/em><\/p>\n

The first ending. And knowing it would end
\nI wanted another. Lover, summer,
\npen with which to write it all down.
\nThe first disappointment. Which is not
\nremembered but lives in the body.
\nAnd how familiar it became \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like what you read,\u00a0get a year of<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u2014four new issues, plus instant access to everything we\u2019ve ever published.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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