O espelho e a lâmpada

Speaking of students, you’ve had some famous ones — Harold Bloom, E.D. Hirsh, Thomas Pynchon.

I’ve had some very good ones, fortunately, yes. .. . I remember receiving a term paper from somebody named Tom Pynchon, whom I didn’t recognize, and I knew it couldn’t have been written by an undergraduate — that it had to have been cribbed. So I wrote down the usual teacher’s dodge, “Come see me at your early convenience. We have to talk.” He hadn’t talked for two minutes before I realized that he was the author of the paper. So there was no question about Pynchon. He had it from the beginning. Some of what he wrote for an undergraduate literary journal became part of his first book, “V.”

How often do you encounter a talent like that?

Once in a blue moon.

[de uma entrevista ao agora centenário M. H. Abrams, professor em Cornell, primeiro editor da canónica Norton Anthology of English Literature e autor do clássico estudo sobre o romantismo  The Mirror and the Lamp]