Part 17 (1/2)

Last night I had dinner with Marilyn [Monroe] and her friends at the Pump Room. Today the news sleuths are pumping me. Marilyn seemed genuinely glad to see a familiar face. I have yet to see anything in Marilyn that isn't genuine. Surrounded by thousands she conducts herself like a philosopher.

I heard from Greg this morning. He pa.s.sed a difficult examination and was admitted to Bronx Science High School. How do you like that!

Yours,

About Marilyn Monroe Bellow would later say, ”She was connected with a very powerful current but she couldn't disconnect herself from it. [ . . . ] She had a kind of curious incandescence under the skin.”

To Harvey Swados April 9, 1959 Minneapolis Dear Harvey, Your review of Henderson Henderson made me happy. There's such a chaos of misunderstanding surrounding it that I feel like cheering when the main points are made out-spirited comedy, here and there edged black with earnestness. I can't agree that it's sentimental at the end-but then, how could I? made me happy. There's such a chaos of misunderstanding surrounding it that I feel like cheering when the main points are made out-spirited comedy, here and there edged black with earnestness. I can't agree that it's sentimental at the end-but then, how could I?

Last, I want you to consider writing something for a semi-annual magazine of which I'll be one of the editors. Meridian will publish it and pay contributors five cents a word. I want to make it possible to let off some steam, to write in the good old ranging way that was natural to novelists in the Twenties-in the spirit of Dial Dial and the and the Mercury Mercury, The Enormous Room The Enormous Room or or The American Jitters The American Jitters (while Wilson yet lived, and before he became the great blimp of (while Wilson yet lived, and before he became the great blimp of The New Yorker The New Yorker).

Would it appeal to you to cover the [Floyd] Patterson [-Ingemar Johansson] fight and/or other Garden events? I understand that Cuss Amato, P.'s manager, is a psychologist, so I was told at least. He was described to me as having taught Patterson (fascinating idea) the necessity to feel fear in the ring. I a.s.sume P. is naturally free from it.

You'd have a ball. Meridian would buy you tickets and pay for your fare and dinners. Other contributors will be Ellison, Wright Morris, John Berryman, myself, D. H. Lawrence (over his dead body) and other friends of yours. Possibly Arthur Miller. What do you say? I want to see stories, too, of course, but I'm particularly keen about getting writers into the world again. Literature has for too long been their whole life. I hope the book is going well.

All best,

Harvey Swados (1920-72) was a fiction writer best known for Out Went the Candle Out Went the Candle (1955) and (1955) and Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn (1960). His September 1959 (1960). His September 1959 Esquire Esquire essay ”Why Resign from the Human Race?” is said to have inspired the founding of the Peace Corps essay ”Why Resign from the Human Race?” is said to have inspired the founding of the Peace Corps. Swados's review of Swados's review of Henderson the Rain King Henderson the Rain King had appeared in had appeared in The New Leader. The New Leader.

To f.a.n.n.y Ellison April 14, 1959 Minneapolis Dear f.a.n.n.y, You're very kind about Henderson Henderson. Here and there it's as close to frenzy as a man can get while continuing (somehow) to laugh, and it contains elements I hope I've seen the last of. One of these days I'm going to enter the little inner room where my best humanity has been locked up for a long time. Not just yet.

We're all much better than we were. I think it did us nearly as much good to get away from Tivoli as you say it's done Ralph to be there.

I wish you, in all ways, the best of everything.

Your friend,

To Alice Adams [n.d.] [Minneapolis]

Dear Alice: Your story is much better, if no less grim. (I should talk.) The spirit in which you wrote makes it very hard to discuss. It's so obviously a last cry of the heart that I don't like to make any technical points. And nevertheless, the story is very ”technical,” too; both in the good sense and the not-so-good. You are much more of an American than I. There are signs of it all over the place. You do a job of work on the edge of panic. Of your work itself, the writing, I haven't a bad word to say. And I really can't say anything against the story either. Of its kind it is wonderful. There's nothing left to discuss except the kind; which brings us back to the beginning of the paragraph. I don't want to drive tractors into the center of your soul. I think I may be very stupid about this matter, and I must ask you in advance to forgive me. should talk.) The spirit in which you wrote makes it very hard to discuss. It's so obviously a last cry of the heart that I don't like to make any technical points. And nevertheless, the story is very ”technical,” too; both in the good sense and the not-so-good. You are much more of an American than I. There are signs of it all over the place. You do a job of work on the edge of panic. Of your work itself, the writing, I haven't a bad word to say. And I really can't say anything against the story either. Of its kind it is wonderful. There's nothing left to discuss except the kind; which brings us back to the beginning of the paragraph. I don't want to drive tractors into the center of your soul. I think I may be very stupid about this matter, and I must ask you in advance to forgive me.

It's the smallness of the compa.s.s that bothers me. The story is cut off from life at one stroke. There's something too breathless about it, and there isn't enough s.p.a.ce or air for the emotions. They can't expand and therefore grow painful. Does that make sense? Or let me put it in the old-fas.h.i.+oned and possibly-to you-pompous esthetic terms of unity and diversity. The story lacks diversity, and its very virtues make it intolerable by holding you tightly. Besides, you don't have to write like all the sisterhood since Virginia Woolf. You ought to give up some of the conventions of feminine sensibility.

This may not sound kind, but I a.s.sure you all the unkindness is in the sound. For a long time I allowed myself to be pushed into these small s.p.a.ces, too. I am only urging you to utter the magic syllable ”Whoosh” in the face of psychological oppression. The nineteenth century drove writers into attics. The twentieth shuts them in nutsh.e.l.ls. The only remedy is to declare yourself king, or queen, of infinite s.p.a.ce. There is a word for that too, megalomania, but you have taught me (that's an excellent touch, the fervor with which the girl takes unto herself the various mental diseases) not to worry about that.

I think Sasha and I will blow the West pretty soon. I have to get back East. Not that I look forward to any of it-always excepting my son. Because of a deadline I had to decline Berkeley's invitation to lecture. So we shan't be getting back to San Francisco, alas. How I wish we could.

It was very good of you to try to fix me up with a job. Money is awfully tight these days. Anita is a devil at finance. I, on the other hand, am a d.a.m.n fool at it. I realize-too late-that I might have had a thousand more out of my Guggenheim if my timidity hadn't prevented. But what'sa use'a talk?

Sure I knew Bill Brown in Paris. I recall that he was fine, jolly and nutty. Whenever he grows serious he wears a look of intensest anguish-right? That's the same guy.

I don't know about [Norman] Mailer. I like him, but he's such an ideologist. I do everything the hard way.

Love, Alice Adams (1926-99) was an American fiction writer best known for her short stories, collected in After You've Gone After You've Gone (1989) and (1989) and The Last Lovely City The Last Lovely City (1999), and for her novel (1999), and for her novel Superior Women Superior Women (1984). (1984).

To Ralph Ellison [n.d.] [Minneapolis} Dear Ralph, I counted on the two little old dolls to plant the garden, but I suppose spring cleaning was too much for them, those moth-flakes. So I'm going to ask you to go to the Farmer's Coop in Red Hook and buy sweet corn, cuc.u.mber and squash seed and plant a few rows, please, reading from left to right tomatoes, about six or eight hills of cuc.u.mbers, five or six rows of corn (six should be an even number) and about five hills of squash where the tomatoes used to sit. The rail in the middle of the garden is the worst, as you'll see. There I put in beans last summer to enrich the ground. You can do all this in a few hours and oblige me greatly. It'll keep us all in produce this summer, and give Sasha and me a good reason to go out in the sun.

The mower will never do, I suppose. They're cheaper now, and I may go to Montgomery Ward [ . . . ] and get one with a guarantee. Money? Somehow it turns up when it's needed, and I've learned to stop thinking about it in excess.

Lettuce, carrots, etc. are raided by rabbits and woodchucks, and to plant them in the open is no use.

If Sarda has p.o.o.ped out we'd better begin to get bids from others for regular yearly care. We'll close out old randy Jack fairly but inexorably unless he wakes from that long sleep.

I'll be along soon to attack the hares. Hope the garden isn't too demanding. Put in whatever you like, but I'd feel crazy to live in the country without corn and tomatoes. It's bad enough not to have a cow.

Love,

To Bernard Malamud May 10, 1959 Minneapolis Dear Bern, I shy away from all writers' organizations. The PEN is about my limit, and I have doubts about that. No doubt the [Authors] League is fine, but the publisher and the agent aren't the enemy. The enemy (and I'm not horribly hostile towards them, either) is a hundred sixty million people who read nothing. What's the League going to do about them, about Orville Prescott, about TV and Hollywood? It may increase my income by six hundred per annum. I don't care about increasing my income by six hundred per annum. It isn't worth joining an organization for. [ . . . ]

Best,

To Richard V. Chase May 27, 1959 [Tivoli]

Dear Mr. Chase: I find myself in the strange position of one who provokes comment on his behavior and then tries to avoid hearing it. Ordinarily I can't read what people have to say about my writing. But I read your essay with particular satisfaction and agreed with many of your points. Freedom for what? This is the philosophical or religious question I seem to have failed to satisfy. It's a strange thing to be a ”cognitive” writer without the will or the capacity to continue to a definite conclusion. I sometimes think the comedy in my books is a satire on this inconclusiveness.

Of course, mere writers of fiction have never been burdened with such responsibilities before, and I doubt that much good art can result from this striving for useful or intellectually acceptable opinion.

Anyway, you've done a good thing for me and I'm very grateful.