The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott (Ad-Free/Patron-Only Early Access)

I read The Pilgrim Hawk a decade or more ago, and didn't know quite what to make of it. It seemed to show some Bloomsbury influence in that it had more to do with inward states and their subtle shiftings than with any action—almost a novel of drawing-room manners, an odd character study in which women are powerful and capable, and men are weak, contemplative, ineffectual, and schemers. It contained some devastating lines, such as this one: "The unsuccessful artist also ends in an apathy, too proud and vexed to fly again, waiting upon withheld inspiration, bored to death ..." The NYRB Classics edition has a brilliant introduction by Michael Cunningham. I love what he writes about Tower, the narrator (and failed writer): he "sees too much and, in seeing so clearly, wants too little ... a man so gifted with vision that he is unable to abandon it and simply, irrationally desire anyone or anything."