Comments on: The Scholars and the Pornographer

By: ellis gold

ellis gold — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 02:42:24 +0000

Hey Carolyn,
I would like to connect. I loved your story and the telling is powerful. Laughed a lot. Larry sells speaks for me.

By: Lisa Ann Courington

Lisa Ann Courington — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 22:56:03 +0000

Carolyn, I’m reading this many months after you’ve posted it, possibly many more months from when you wrote it. But the vibrancy of your writing, the grab-you-by the-lapels-and-take-notice-of-me quality of this piece is the most stunning thing I’ve read in weeks. It took me completely by surprise (although I should have remembered your bracing style from “Making a Literary Life”) as I came to this link by way of your wonderfully snarky Post review of Dominique Browning’s book (Thank you for your candor. Your tone and outrage were pitch perfect!) which put me on a high sunny note. Then I came to this and it simply fixed me in place. It’s not the kind of thing I’ll forget soon. One of my favorite lines: “It wasn’t ‘like’ that; it was that. The look in her eyes was the same that I had seen on my father’s face in the nursing home weeks before he died.”

Spot on.

Thank you.

By: Larry Sells

Larry Sells — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:19:29 +0000

Beautifully written and deeply moving.

By: Terri Elders

Terri Elders — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:40:02 +0000

Oh, Carolyn…this piece fairly shimmers with love. What a glorious tribute to those you’ve loved so much. So many I’ve loved have died these past three years,including Kelly Presley and my husband, Ken Wilson, this past summer. But Herbert Gold is Still Alive, as he brags in his eponymous memoir, and I talked to him the day after the Haiti earthquake, since I knew he was planning to visit there again this winter. And Carolyn, you, too, are still writing, so Maga and Futu live on! xox Terri

By: Karen Winstedt

Karen Winstedt — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:08:05 +0000

This was so moving it has me in tears.
I have always loved Carolyn See’s writing and felt some kinship over having had a monster mother similar to hers. It’s a huge consolation to know more about her closeness with he father. So funny about Maga and Futu, and I truly hope his pornography made him a good living. It’s a special sort of genre, and surely not easy to do at all. It reminded me of how much I loved my own dad, and how brave men are, especially when they make mistaken marriages and still stick by their kids.
It’s also good to have Carolyn See still writing book reviews. I follow her on Fridays in the Washington Post, always helpful to readers and yet kind to writers. I’ll have to take another look at John Grisham, for example. I tend to like the movies better than the books, but he’s a real hero down here in Central Virginia. Built a lovely ball field for the kids in my county, among other things.

By: Carolyn See

Carolyn See — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:25:59 +0000

Dear Anita!
Thank you so much for your sweet comment! I loved those three people so much (although Dame Helen would probably throw up just thinking about that). My dad was a terrific writer and the bravest possible person, and the same goes for John Espey. Liz Benedict was so wonderful to let me write about them. Thanks again, Carolyn See

By: anita feferman

anita feferman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:59:06 +0000

Wow. So moving! I loved this unbelievable story. Too true to be fiction? Or something like that. Wonderful to see these people reflected in See’s eyes. Such love in the details. More than funny to see Helen and George in the same sentence. Thanks to Carolyn See for writing it and to Rumpus for publishing it.

Anita Feferman