When you think Shelby Foote, Anton Chekov isn't top-of-mind. Foote, our time's premier Civil War historian and raconteur supreme, is associated with the brutal schism that brought America to arms with itself in the mid-19th century. Foote is a man of belles lettres. His influences are Proust, Shakespere, and Chekov.
To paraphrase Foote, Chekov wasn't interested in the answers to man's difficult questions, he was interested in refining the questions. Fascinating, right? No answers, only better defined, purer, questions. It's the realm of poetry and the heart of spirituality, at least it once was the realm of poetry and the heart of spirituality before pop culture hijacked them and ran them aground. Without poetry and spirit we swirl and twirl between the scylla of instant analysis and quick fix solutions and the charybdis of absolute, lead-pipe, sure thing absolutes built upon the quicksand of hubris.
Click on the title for the delightful interview with Foote. Forewarning: it's three hours long.
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