I pull out a book and turn it over in my hands. Stephen Dedalus is a hero of mine. One of my favorite passages in the novel takes place right after a priest tries to convince Stephen that he should accept the calling of the priesthood. Stephen stands on a landing in front of a church, shaking the priest’s hand. At that moment a group of singing young men pass by and a segment of time no longer than the glance of Stephen’s eyes is stretched over eight lines of prose. I look up those eight lines now, and I feel suddenly like Carla must have felt after she folded her blanket over three times and held it against her face.
Bradley, Sally and I went through a period of adolescent “artistic apprehension,” just like Stephen does in Joyce’s novel. We would walk around Walden Pond and talk about th
