I remember how I would wince whenever a student, wishing to be respectful, would refer to “Mr. Frost,” “Mr. Hemingway,” or, worse yet, “Mr. Shakespeare.” Just write “Hemingway” or “Frost,” I would tell them, the way you would with a ballplayer like Jeter or Brady. No one writes “Mr. Jeter stole second base” or “Mr. Brady badly overthrew his receiver.” So why don’t we just call Shakespeare “Shakespeare”? And yet, when a living author is referred to by the last name only, it sounds so final, as if the author were already dead and the critical comment were part of a eulogy delivered over the body stretched out in a satin casket. When I read “The closer Bidart gets to the self…” or “Here Bidart addresses a former lover…” I feel that Frank has been reduced to English literature, turned into a stone where his name is chiseled above his dates separated by the hyphen of his life. Does anyone say “Good morning, Bidart” or “Bidart, let me freshen up that drink.”
What do You think about The Rain In Portugal (2016)?
