Part 8 (1/2)

Write to 33 Vaneau. We have to move again.

Nicola Chiaromonte (1904-1972) was a leading essayist and theater critic both in America at The New Republic The New Republic and and Partisan Review Partisan Review and in Italy at and in Italy at L'Espresso L'Espresso and and La Stampa. La Stampa. With Ign.a.z.io Silone, he founded the magazine With Ign.a.z.io Silone, he founded the magazine Tempo Presente. Tempo Presente.

To Herbert and Mitzie McCloskey [n.d.] [Paris]

Dearest Herb and Mitzie, After a year and a half in Paris, bien isole bien isole, a very mysterious and above all friendless life, letters like yours are in the most literal sense from another world where I have friends from whom, inexplicably it sometimes seems, I have separated myself. But of course such separations are the characteristic ones, now, and sans le savoir sans le savoir [ [39] I get into the path-put myself there, I mean-of the characteristic. I can't say why I left Mpls. any more than I could explain why, when it happened, I pulled out of Chicago. I submitted to an intuition, and later understood that I had (for me) done right. There are things you can't comprehend by staying with them. But many of these moves are heavy. They are Jonah journeys. myself there, I mean-of the characteristic. I can't say why I left Mpls. any more than I could explain why, when it happened, I pulled out of Chicago. I submitted to an intuition, and later understood that I had (for me) done right. There are things you can't comprehend by staying with them. But many of these moves are heavy. They are Jonah journeys.

So I needn't say ”frankly” in preface to the following: that I don't really know where I ought to be. You must be as well aware of it as I am. My intuitions are more made up than my mind.

I wrote to Sam Monk because both Gug. and Viking money will have run out by March, to ask whether whether he knew of any jobs for me. He was very solicitous, and he inquired at Harvard. I've not definitely turned anything down. It's still possible that I may go to Harvard. Meanwhile I've applied for a Gug. renewal. My difficulty is explained by the fact that I worked eight months at a book I've decided to put aside. Since October, I've finished about two-thirds of he knew of any jobs for me. He was very solicitous, and he inquired at Harvard. I've not definitely turned anything down. It's still possible that I may go to Harvard. Meanwhile I've applied for a Gug. renewal. My difficulty is explained by the fact that I worked eight months at a book I've decided to put aside. Since October, I've finished about two-thirds of Augie March Augie March-an on the whole much better performance. If I'm to live by my writing I can't afford such eight-month losses.

So I don't know what we'll be doing. Economically, it might be just us well to stay in Europe, though we're coming home for a visit in September. Europe is not the Great Good Place for me, though with all my dissatisfaction it has taught me a great deal about what and who I am. That is, really, what and who others others are. These discoveries are not true when condensed, so that I'll leave to wait till fall to tell you of them, and to hear yours and see you again, a pleasure I often have in daydreams. are. These discoveries are not true when condensed, so that I'll leave to wait till fall to tell you of them, and to hear yours and see you again, a pleasure I often have in daydreams.

Yes, I'd like to be in Mpls. again; I need a pied-a-terre pied-a-terre. But I know it would be temporary again. I am very hostile, I tell you once more what you surely know, to ”literary culture.” I think of it as an enemy. I am not thinking only of des gisants funestes des gisants funestes [ [40] like H[untington] Brown and a host of others who have made literature originate in itself, for whom even belief belief is literature. is literature.

And, along with ”literary culture,” the other vanities of ”culture” that have no meeting with chaos. If there's anything that dwelling in this French park has shown me it is the blindness that a great cultural inheritance bequeaths. The idea of a university, as Ortega says, is in cla.s.sicism; the true life of poetry, as he also tells us, is in s.h.i.+pwreck.

That's been the teaching of my intuitions, too, and that's why I spoke of Jonah. I haven't been able to resist safety, and I haven't been able to rest in it. I know that if I don't get the Guggenheim, I'll jump at the chance to be at Mpls. The greatest charm of it would be living with you once more. But I know also that I'll jump again; that I couldn't permanently stay.

Because I understand that the best of me has formed in the jumps.

The theory of it apart, I'm moved at being wanted by people who know I disagree with them and disapprove of what they do, people like Leonard [Unger] and [William Van] O'Connor.

We're going to Salzburg in April, in May to Venice, in June to Rome, and we're sailing at the end of August. Will you be in the East around Labor Day? If you could be, what great pleasure to see you in New York.

Tumin is conducting a tour from Princeton and I expect him here in July. He's written kindly to me, but we've had a sort of quarrel over I[rving] Howe.

Best love to all of you,

PART TWO.

1950-1959.

And now here's the thing. It takes a time like this for you to find out how sore your heart has been, and, moreover, all the while you thought you were going around idle terribly hard work was taking place. Hard, hard work, excavation and digging, mining, moling through tunnels, heaving, pus.h.i.+ng, moving rock, working, working, working, working, working, panting, hauling, hoisting. And none of this work is seen from the outside. It's internally done. It happens because you are powerless and unable to get anywhere, to obtain justice or have requital, and therefore in yourself you labor, you wage and combat, settle scores, remember insults, fight, reply, deny, blab, denounce, triumph, outwit, overcome, vindicate, cry, persist, absolve, die and rise again. All by yourself! Where is everybody? Inside your breast and skin, the entire cast.

-The Adventures of Augie March

1950.

To Robert Hivnor [n.d.] [Paris]

Dear Bob: I wish I had stayed in a temperance hotel with the temperate. Although I don't judge the inverted with harshness, still it is rather difficult to go to London thinking of d.i.c.kens and Hardy, to say nothing of Milton and Marx, and land in the midst of fairies. My publisher is one; all the guests at his c.o.c.ktail party were ones; all the Horizon Horizon people, with the single exception of a man who apparently suffered from satyriasis, likewise at their c.o.c.ktail party. This single exception was chasing Sonia Brownell Orwell, who didn't appear to have a husband on the point of death. It was confounding. Modern life is too much for me. people, with the single exception of a man who apparently suffered from satyriasis, likewise at their c.o.c.ktail party. This single exception was chasing Sonia Brownell Orwell, who didn't appear to have a husband on the point of death. It was confounding. Modern life is too much for me. Bien, je m'en fous Bien, je m'en fous [ [41]. I enjoyed London anyway. There was a fire in the Covent Garden bas.e.m.e.nt, carol-singing in Trafalgar Square led by a spontaneous girl who stood on the base of a statue. And the Channel was rough both pa.s.sages, but the second time I came off dull but victorious at Dieppe.

[Paolo] Milano writes from Rome that [Eric] Bentley has become a t.i.toist. He wants to know why, but without being able to say, I feel it's very natural. That's all the news I have for you about the theatrical world. Except that I went to Camus's new play which was grievously bad. Also to Le Bossu Le Bossu at the Marigny, which just couldn't resolve to be corny enough and so lost its opportunity for redemption by fun. [ . . . ] at the Marigny, which just couldn't resolve to be corny enough and so lost its opportunity for redemption by fun. [ . . . ]

Incidentally, d.i.c.k Ellmann is trying to get me a Briggs-Copeland fellows.h.i.+p there [at Harvard]; I have no job for next year, not much money, and if I fail to get a Guggenheim (not competing with you; I'm among the applicants for renewal) I'll be in a rather bad spot.

Anita leaves her job in April and we go to Salzburg for a month. Afterwards, Italy. After that (early September) home. Everything's very indefinite and deracine deracine. Except Augie March, Augie March, which I work on with great satisfaction every day. I'm very pleased that you liked chapter 1. Hope you will the next. [ . . . ] which I work on with great satisfaction every day. I'm very pleased that you liked chapter 1. Hope you will the next. [ . . . ]

The snapshot was a succes fou succes fou with Gregory and the rest of us. Your son's very handsome. with Gregory and the rest of us. Your son's very handsome.

All the best to you both (all three), Robert Hivnor had been a colleague and friend of Bellow's at the University of Minnesota. Eric Bentley (born 1916), playwright, critic, cabaret performer, translator, has been for fifty years the preeminent historian of modern European drama; he and Bellow were also colleagues at University of Minnesota. Albert Camus's ”grievously bad” play was Les Justes Les Justes.

To Monroe Engel January 12, 1950 Paris Dear Monroe: I have just sent out a stack of mss. with my Guggenheim application and asked H. A. Moe to forward it to you when his committee have done feeding their spirits on it. Part of the Crab and the b.u.t.terfly, Crab and the b.u.t.terfly, which I put aside for which I put aside for Augie March Augie March is in the bundle, four or five chapters out of the middle of it; when you've seen them you'll perhaps feel easier about my having given over-for the time being. As for is in the bundle, four or five chapters out of the middle of it; when you've seen them you'll perhaps feel easier about my having given over-for the time being. As for Augie March Augie March, I'm having such an enthusiastic labor with it that it hadn't occurred to me-in my daily stumpbombings-how a reader might feel about risking limbs in the clearing. No, I don't believe it has dropped or changed its pace in the fifty thousand words of it I've done so far. You judge for yourself, but please remember you'll read it exactly exactly as first written, without a single alteration. Ch. 1 in as first written, without a single alteration. Ch. 1 in PR PR was rewritten once. was rewritten once.

There are reasons of all sorts for coming back, not all of them financial, but the financial in themselves weigh a good deal. I've put in for a Guggenheim. I don't think Mr. Moe cares much for me (Alfred, perhaps, may be in a position to put in a word) and I don't feel that I'm going to get anything from him. I have written to Prof. Ball at Queens College to ask for a job and shall have to wait for his answer before I can ask you to do anything about an apartment. The only other prospect I have is, queerly enough, at Harvard-the Briggs-Copeland Fellows.h.i.+p. There's nothing else. And life in Paris is not cheap; I'd have to go to work for UNESCO or something like that if we wanted to stay.

I'm going to Salzburg in April. By that time the first draft of Augie Augie will be ready, please G.o.d, and I can start the grinding-provided the noise of Germans cheering for Thomas Wolfe isn't too loud. [ . . . ] will be ready, please G.o.d, and I can start the grinding-provided the noise of Germans cheering for Thomas Wolfe isn't too loud. [ . . . ]

What's Isaac doing, by the way? I never hear from him at all. Is it the sad lot of the boyhood friends of a.n.a.lysands coming to me? Well, when you see him tell him that we love him and think of him often. Is he writing a novel? Have you seen what he's doing? What is it like?

Best to everyone,

To Alfred Kazin January 28, 1950 Paris Dear Alfred: A little list of disloyal people who are astonished at my wanting to come back to America will be just the thing, just the thing. It's also rather interesting that people don't believe Balzac, Flaubert and Stendhal when they write of French life and of Paris-much less Dostoyevsky in that queer little book called Le Bourgeois de Paris Le Bourgeois de Paris. They prefer to trust Henry James, or Henry Miller or even Carl Van Vechten and all that happy American throng that lived around the Montagne Ste. Genevieve. But if Stendhal were alive today, he might very conceivably choose to live in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.-considering what has become of his beloved Milan. And of this I am sure: that he would do as I do with his copy of Les Temps Modernes Les Temps Modernes, that is scan the latest sottises sottises, observe with brutal contempt the newest wrinkle in anguish and then feed Simone's articles on s.e.x to the cat to cure her of her heat and give the remainder to little G[regory] to cut dollies from; he can't read yet and lives happily in nature.

But, a few lines of business. My news has reached you in a confused and debased state. I merely asked Monroe and/or Henry to inquire of you what the situation was. I didn't mean for them to shake you with a storm of demands in my name. I don't don't think you ought to write to Moe. I've already sent him a batch of mss., and if merit has anything to do with his decision-which I understand is not strictly the case-there ought to be no question about the decision. I know J. F. Powers was refused a renewal recently, however, and Jean Stafford told me last summer that Moe had called her in to discuss Powers with her. Her praise didn't help. But this reveals that there is some sort of Prague Arcana in use along 5th Ave., and I thought you might know something about it. As for the teaching, that too came to you with more hot and urgent sweat than it originally issued with. think you ought to write to Moe. I've already sent him a batch of mss., and if merit has anything to do with his decision-which I understand is not strictly the case-there ought to be no question about the decision. I know J. F. Powers was refused a renewal recently, however, and Jean Stafford told me last summer that Moe had called her in to discuss Powers with her. Her praise didn't help. But this reveals that there is some sort of Prague Arcana in use along 5th Ave., and I thought you might know something about it. As for the teaching, that too came to you with more hot and urgent sweat than it originally issued with. ca n'est pas tellement grave ca n'est pas tellement grave [ [42]. I'll try Sarah Lawrence, but it would give no joy. What I princ.i.p.ally need is a shack wherein to finish a book. After it's done, I'd as lief work in a factory as remain in what are called intellectual milieux-my heart's abhorrence, they're coming to be. Wherever there are people who still desire desire something, even if they are after false G.o.ds. Perhaps you know a kind of industrialist who would give a writer still in fair physical condition a job in a cannery or mattress factory. I'm not joking. something, even if they are after false G.o.ds. Perhaps you know a kind of industrialist who would give a writer still in fair physical condition a job in a cannery or mattress factory. I'm not joking.

I still hope I'll soon be able to read your book. Preparatory to going to Salzburg (April) I have picked up On Native Grounds On Native Grounds and read large parts of it again with great pleasure. Also, I thought your piece in and read large parts of it again with great pleasure. Also, I thought your piece in PR PR superb-the one on Melville. It ought to be compulsory reading in all graduate schools. Apparently [Richard] Chase and [Cleanth] Brooks ( superb-the one on Melville. It ought to be compulsory reading in all graduate schools. Apparently [Richard] Chase and [Cleanth] Brooks (Understanding Fiction-Warren is to blame too, alas, who should know better) are convinced that to write a story is to manipulate symbols. What are they going to make young writers in the colleges think but that they daren't their most natural step but must learn ”mythic” footwork? This is what happens when literature itself becomes the basis for literature and cla.s.sics become crushers.

Eh, bien . . . write me some good news. . . . write me some good news.