Ben Dolnick

Nov 7, 2023 | bendolnick.substack.com | Ben Dolnick

“‘Playing secrétaire?’ said the old prince, approaching.’”That Tolstoy wrote the greatest ever sex scene isn’t a surprise. He bestrides the literary record books, Michael-Phelps-like: best hunting scene, best deathbed scene, best rant by a supporting character. What is a surprise is that this greatest ever sex scene doesn’t feature any sex. It takes place at a dinner party, and no one involved removes so much as a cummerbund.

Mar 21, 2023 | bendolnick.substack.com | Ben Dolnick

“‘Me?’”A piece of dialogue gets written (“Help! He fell this morning,” said Helen. “Could you come over?”) and then, like a freshly minted car door, it sets off down the assembly line for improvements. The first station cares merely about naturalism: is this actually how people talk? (Maybe it should have a bit of the choppiness of panic in it? “He fell! On the stairs. Where are you?”) Distinguished employees at this station include Henry Green and George V. Higgins.

Mar 14, 2023 | bendolnick.substack.com | Ben Dolnick

“Would you think he was anybody like you?”Great novels don’t need great last sentences. Lop off the last line of Moby Dick or War and Peace and hardly anyone would notice (War and Peace would, in fact, benefit from having its last ten-thousand lines cut). Short stories, though, are less forgiving. Cut the last line of “The Dead,” with its faintly falling falling faintly snow, and its claim on greatness would evaporate overnight.

Feb 27, 2023 | bendolnick.substack.com | Ben Dolnick

“It was like waking up to discover you’ve drifted into the wrong lane and now traffic was coming straight at you, and there was no time, no time.”Every artistic endeavor, however virtuosic, however noble, flirts with absurdity. I’m going to spend a couple of years obsessing about how best to describe the doings of a person who doesn’t exist. Sound like a plan?

Feb 13, 2023 | bendolnick.substack.com | Ben Dolnick

“‘You know how it is, you’re talking to somebody and he says something and the next fellow says something, and the first thing you know, you heard something.’”I recently lost my AirPods (God doesn’t give us more than we can bear). So for two weeks of dog-walks and subway rides and bodega runs, I was without my standard soundtrack of podcast blather and mid-2000’s indie rock.