Thank Goodness for Joan Acocella

On the page, her fabulous erudition was melded to a frankness that was so unaffected as to seem effortless. Actually—a very Joan word—simplicity is hard work, and Joan worked hard. She wrote her drafts in longhand and sent page proofs by fax. She liked her diction blunt, earthy, threaded with startling touches of beauty. I laugh when I read her description of the puppeteer Basil Twist’s abstract “Symphonie Fantastique,” with “blue disks that bump into each other, like who the hell are you” and “something whirling in a circle, like an enraged doughnut.” She put David Remnick in mind of both Virginia Woolf and the hardboiled sportswriter Heywood Broun. Naturally, Joan described her own style best. “I like a little sand in my oyster,” she said—a motto to live by.