The serious reading community has lost a great hero.  The mysteriously 
beautiful thing about great art, including its written form, is that it lives 
on, long after the author is gone.  O'Brien has acheived immortality.  His 
writing will always be savored by a small group who are made more alive by 
living through his prose.   I do wish somebody would come out with a 
biography on the man.  Maybe in a few years a scholar will roll up his 
sleeves and get behind the veil. Now I will really slow down as I read that 
final book, the one about the Blue Mizzen mast.   ---cgy