Vivian Gornick: On Writing Letters

How to resist cultural decline without giving in to pessimism.

Welcome to “Words of Wisdom”, a series that zooms in on a passage of writing — an essay, a chapter, a speech — from a great thinker on a specific idea.

Today, Vivian Gornick: essayist, critic, and one of the great re-readers, whose writing always feels generous. Reading her on the topic of favourite books, the death of an almost-friend, or what feminism means to her, you feel seen and gifted with the attention of someone whose interest in life is enlivening. Gornick’s writing voice is itself an art-form that, as The New Yorker put it, “does not just tell the story, it is the story”. Here, we’ll look at an essay from her collection Approaching Eye Level.