It is genuinely fascinating to see the number of people who seem to think that Helen Dewitt’s “problem” was being disorganized and also grumpy about it. At almost 70 years old, I think there is also a question there I haven’t seen anyone else mention, which is that of time and how she wanted to spend it. One’s time is always limited, but at 69, and after a run of disastrous years in which she could not work, if Dewitt is finally feeling able to work, and has set a stretch of time in which she can finally do that, and felt that accepting this prize would have cut into or destroyed that time in a meaningful way, then I can see someone ultimately deciding that it was not worth $175,000. What is the value of a year of one’s life? Of an idea, a book, a good six months of flow state? After a certain point as writers, we come to know ourselves, our limits, and what does and does not allow us to engage in meaningful work. How many good writing years does Dewitt have left? Twenty-five? Ten? Two? I don’t know the details of her physical health and it’s none of my business. How many more books does she want to write? How many more seeds of projects does she feel stirring within her? Is there time to get them all out? Sometimes the gap between what we can do and what we should be able to do is a lot wider than it looks from the outside.