Well, Mr. Mudrick Said

Marvin Mudrick (1921-1986) was a professor of English and the provost of the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He wrote for The Hudson Review, Harper's, and The New York Review of Books, and published several collections of literary criticism. In the classroom, he was an extraordinary creator of conversation about the greatest books and authors, raising and discussing the fundamental questions and details of human life, history, and romantic love. "No one defines himself more completely than by what he says," he said, and he himself was most completely defined by his dazzling and hilarious talk. He was known across campus not only for the creation of CCS in 1967 and his literature classes, but for his course in the Writing of Narrative Prose. He told his students: "For me the most interesting fact about the writing of fiction, and I think this is not true of any other artistic medium: you are all experts."

Bob Blaisdell, a writer, editor, and an English professor at the City University of New York's Kingsborough Community College, was one of Mudrick's students. In this memoir he recalls with love and appreciation the brilliant man and teacher. He is also the author of Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature's Most Enigmatic Heroine.