We Need Silence to Find Out What We Think: Selected Essays

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Shirley Hazzard—Author, Amateur, Intellectual, by Brigitta Olubas

Part I. THROUGH LITERATURE ITSELF

We Need Silence to Find Out What We Think

The Lonely Word

1. Virgil and Montale

2. The Defense of Candor

3. Posterity: “The Bright Reversion”

Part II. THE EXPRESSIVE WORD

A Mind Like a Blade: Review of Muriel Spark, Collected Stories I and The Public Image

Review of Jean Rhys, Quartet

The Lasting Sickness of Naples: Review of Matilde Serao, Il Ventre di Napoli

The New Novel by the New Nobel Prize Winner: Review of Patrick White, The Eye of the Storm

Ordinary People: Review of Barbara Pym, Quartet in Autumn and Excellent Women

Translating Proust

Introduction to Geoffrey Scott’s The Portrait of Zélide

Introduction to Iris Origo’s Leopardi: A Study in Solitude

William Maxwell

Part III. PUBLIC THEMES

The Patron Saint of the UN is Pontius Pilate

“Gulag” and the Men of Peace

The United Nations: Where Governments Go to Church

The League of Frightened Men: Why the UN is So Useless

UNhelpful: Waldheim’s Latest Debacle

A Writer’s Reflections on the Nuclear Age

Part IV. THE GREAT OCCASION

Canton More Far

Papyrology at Naples

The Tuscan in Each of Us

Part V. LAST WORDs

2003 National Book Award Acceptance

The New York Society Library Discussion, September 2012