Excerpts from a book review titled …
"Saul Bellow’s Quest for the Vernacular Sublime"
“We often stopped before a display of children’s shoes. My mother coveted for me a pair of patent-leather sandals with an elegantissimo strap. I finally got them— I rubbed them with butter to preserve the leather. This is when I was 6 or 7 years old, a little older than Rosie is now. Amazing how it all boils down to a pair of patent-leather sandals.” recorded that ancient memory, stirred to it by play with his little daughter, in a letter on Feb. 19, 2004, when he was 88 years old. It is the last letter in this magnificent book…."
"… Finally he was— may this, too, be said without irony?— a seeker after truth."
— Leon Wieseltier in the November 21 New York Times Sunday Book Review
Without irony is fine, but don't forget the sandals.