January 12, 2001

The End of the Journey

By MELVIN JULES BUKIET

The recent publication of The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent, a selection of essays by the literary critic Lionel Trilling, brought to mind an encounter I had with Professor Trilling exactly a quarter of a century ago, in the season of his death.

I had just entered Columbia University's M.F.A. program, where, unlike the other would-be novelists, who seemed glad to spend most of their time writing fiction, I cherished upper Broadway's scent of high academe. I had already registered

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