Here's Anna!

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On page 69 of Anna Karinena, I finally meet… Anna Karinena! Imagine the reaction of a modern literary agent if given the manuscript like this: "Meanders about for dozens and dozens of pages without even introducing the main character: The writer has no idea what he is doing."

It is amazing how different classic works of literature typically are from the advice given to writers in trade magazines and so forth. That advice comprises recipes for producing a Big Mac, indistinguishable from every other Big Mac except by the packaging.

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