Part 32 (1/2)

To Samuel S. Goldberg [n. d.]

When Mark Twain returned from a visit with Harriet Beecher Stowe and found he had called on her without a necktie, he posted the tie to her and wrote, ”Sorry we couldn't both be there at the same time.” Thus with this check. On Sat.u.r.day, I'm off to Tokyo. There I expect to find some excellent second-hand book stores unraided and undespoiled by S. S. Goldberg. I may find something to your liking. Perhaps one of those s.e.xual scrolls to cheer your lonely hours in the office and strengthen you in honorable dealings with Man and Government.

The pickled trout at Max's was better than ever. I left half a buck for the reddish pudgy woman and went back along Fifth Ave. hoping we might meet.

Yours ever,

I'll settle for the [Lawrence] Binyan Dante, volumes I and II. I have the Paradiso. Paradiso.

Among Bellow's great friends, Samuel S. Goldberg was a Yiddish-speaking lawyer and bibliophile. The two of them could sometimes be spotted in New York's used bookshops, particularly the Gotham and the Strand.

To Frances Gendlin May [?], 1972 [Chicago]

Dear Frances: There are many reasons why I didn't write. For one thing, the jet lag was awful. It took more than ten days to recover. For another, I turned out to be a real or perhaps imaginary celebrity, and immediately began to do seminars, lectures, interviews, radio programs and j.a.panese semi-state dinners, sitting on the floor, using chopsticks and eating raw fish, or trying to eat it. I drank a good deal of sake to help myself sleep, but I kept waking at four A.M., utterly wretched most of the time. My system is sound enough, for a man of my age, but even it was not able to cope with the terrific time and s.p.a.ce changes. After two weeks of this I was allowed to rest in Kyoto, where it was relatively tranquil. Kyoto I thoroughly enjoyed, staying in a j.a.panese inn, old-style, sleeping on the straw mat and lying on the floors half the day, admiring the little moss garden. Being on the floor was childhood again, and childhood is still the most pleasant part of life. A confession of adult failure. Well, I'd better own up. I haven't done too hot, as the old Chicago phrase runs. For three weeks I didn't hear from you at all, and I was quite put out about it. If you wrote a letter you didn't send, I did, too. And then I was disheartened-appalled is a probably more accurate word-to find that I had crab-lice. I felt peculiarly shaky and stupid to make that discovery. I'd had nothing at all to do with women here, except to smile at them over the raw fish held in chopsticks. Going to the doctor was awful. Thinking about it all was awful. Cured now, I feel lousy still. Anti-self, anti-others, but above all the old fool. The world seems to expect that I will do all kinds of good things, and I spite it by doing all kinds of bad ones. They're not terribly is a probably more accurate word-to find that I had crab-lice. I felt peculiarly shaky and stupid to make that discovery. I'd had nothing at all to do with women here, except to smile at them over the raw fish held in chopsticks. Going to the doctor was awful. Thinking about it all was awful. Cured now, I feel lousy still. Anti-self, anti-others, but above all the old fool. The world seems to expect that I will do all kinds of good things, and I spite it by doing all kinds of bad ones. They're not terribly bad bad, either. Striking sins are out of reach. I try to break into the next sector, or find the next development, but nothing comes of this except unhappiness for myself and others. The unhappiness to myself I don't much mind. The effect on others is a curse to me night and day. It's true I haven't taken a shot at [George] Wallace, but there isn't much else I can take credit for. At the end of all this, I can say that I think of you a great deal and lovingly.

I'm flying to San Francisco on the 26th. I suppose I'll be there before the letter arrives and back in Chicago about the first of June.

Love,

On May 15, while campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, presidential candidate and Alabama governor George Wallace had been shot and seriously wounded by Arthur Bremer.

To David Grene June 22, 1972 Chicago My dear David, I had thought to find some rest in j.a.pan but it wasn't like that at all-it never is. I found myself running up and down giving lectures and seminars to widely erudite j.a.panese scholars. Among them there seems to be one of everything under the sun, so that if you call out at Tokyo University for an expert on German armor of the thirteenth century he will appear in a few minutes ready to take sides. Tokyo is a fuming, hissing metropolis, and what G.o.d promised Abraham has come to pa.s.s in Tokyo, not in Jerusalem. They have what Henry James called ”numerosity.” There are no small gatherings, only mobs-everywhere mobs of every description. It was desolating to see but often funny, too, and I felt myself something of a Gulliver there. The old temple cities, anyway, were very beautiful and I reached them in the right frame of mind: I was exhausted and cast myself down in the quiet of temple gardens. These were all beautifully arranged, each stone in place and every bamboo leaf quivering on cue. Then I rushed back to San Francisco and came down with some sort of fever fever. They were ten very unpleasant days. Then I had a court confrontation with Susan and then went East and collected degrees from Yale and Harvard-a double-header. Daniel and I were to have spent July in Aspen but my case continues and I am not at all sure that I'll be able to get out of here. However, Adam and I will certainly turn up in Ireland toward the end of August. As yet, I don't know precisely when. [ . . . ]

Best wishes to everyone, Yours affectionately,

To John Haffenden June 27, 1972 Chicago Dear Mr. Haffenden: Berryman's last letters to me are still scattered about my flat. I haven't had the heart to gather them into an envelope and put them away. Where would I put them? The relations.h.i.+p is still open, as it were. This may serve to explain why it has been difficult for me to answer your inquiry.

Sincerely yours,

Haffenden was beginning research for The Life of John Berryman The Life of John Berryman, which would appear in 1982.

To the Committee on Admissions of the Century a.s.sociation September 29, 1972 Chicago [ . . . ] I understand that Mr. William Phillips has been nominated for members.h.i.+p in the Century Club. My purpose in this letter is to make clear my very strong reasons for opposing this. I am convinced that Phillips has done great harm to American literature over the last ten or fifteen years. The Partisan Review Partisan Review of which he has been an editor from the first was once important and valuable. It continued the cultural line set by of which he has been an editor from the first was once important and valuable. It continued the cultural line set by The Dial, Transition The Dial, Transition and the best of the little magazines. It published Malraux and T. S. Eliot, Silone and Koestler and George Orwell and Edmund Wilson and Robert Lowell and John Berryman [ . . . ]. But, the founding editors resigning for one reason or another, William remained in charge, and William lost no time in selling out. He betrayed and, intellectually and artistically, bankrupted the magazine. Over the last ten years and the best of the little magazines. It published Malraux and T. S. Eliot, Silone and Koestler and George Orwell and Edmund Wilson and Robert Lowell and John Berryman [ . . . ]. But, the founding editors resigning for one reason or another, William remained in charge, and William lost no time in selling out. He betrayed and, intellectually and artistically, bankrupted the magazine. Over the last ten years PR PR has become trivial, fas.h.i.+onable, mean and harmful. Its trendiness is of the pernicious sort. It despises and, as much as it can, damages literature. The values held by early editors like Philip Rahv and Delmore Schwartz it has repudiated entirely. I think it has become the breeding place of a sort of fas.h.i.+onable extremism, of the hysterical, shallow and ignorant academic ”counter-culture.” It trades on the reputation of the magazine, and readers who still a.s.sociate the old names and standards with it are deceived into reading the harmful trash it now prints. In the early days William helped to build the old has become trivial, fas.h.i.+onable, mean and harmful. Its trendiness is of the pernicious sort. It despises and, as much as it can, damages literature. The values held by early editors like Philip Rahv and Delmore Schwartz it has repudiated entirely. I think it has become the breeding place of a sort of fas.h.i.+onable extremism, of the hysterical, shallow and ignorant academic ”counter-culture.” It trades on the reputation of the magazine, and readers who still a.s.sociate the old names and standards with it are deceived into reading the harmful trash it now prints. In the early days William helped to build the old Partisan Partisan but he is also responsible for its decay. Standards have become rather soft, I know, but it's nevertheless difficult for me to understand how anyone who has looked into recent numbers of but he is also responsible for its decay. Standards have become rather soft, I know, but it's nevertheless difficult for me to understand how anyone who has looked into recent numbers of PR PR could think of its editor as a member of the Century Club. could think of its editor as a member of the Century Club.

Yours sincerely,

The Century a.s.sociation, an exclusive Manhattan club, grants members a period in which to support or oppose any candidate standing for members.h.i.+p. Once read by the admissions committee, ”red letters” (as negative appraisals are called) are destroyed. Bellow had retained a carbon copy.

To Barnett Singer November 9, 1972 Chicago Dear Barney Singer- [ . . . ] When I visited Seattle in 1951, I lived in something called the Hotel Meaney and made the rounds with [Theodore] Roethke whom I adored, and Dylan Thomas whom I admired and pitied. I couldn't keep up with them, though, for I'm not a real drinking man.

Thanks for your note.

Barnett Singer (born 1945) has for many years been a professor of history at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. He is the author of, among other works, Maxime Wiegand: A Biography of the French General in Two World Wars Maxime Wiegand: A Biography of the French General in Two World Wars (2008). (2008).

1973.

To Nicolas Nabokov February 20, 1973 Chicago Dear Nicolas, Your Stravinsky recollections are delightful. Your mss. gave me nothing but pleasure. To read it made made my evening. my evening.

I have a few remarks to offer, not to be taken as criticisms but only as suggestions for improvement. First, then, let me say that to address Stravinsky in the second person is confusing and unnecessary. There are long pa.s.sages of exposition during which the device is forgotten, and then one is jolted by the return of the ”you.” I think it would be far better to say Stravinsky or, for informality, Igor Fyodorovich. What you have to tell us is so lively that it needs no grace notes. A second suggestion is that you cut much of the technical discussion of Les Noces. Les Noces. On the whole your musical discussions are rueful and illuminating but this one is too lengthy and unless you could dramatize your meeting with the pedantic musicologists it would be better to cut. About my third and last point you may be rather sensitive-it has to do with Robert Craft, whose image in the end is not entirely clear. One feels how much is left unsaid. Perhaps other people, possibly Auden, would not mind being quoted. But when Craft is mentioned, you fall into psychological diplomacy, ambiguity, etc. This is very different from the free mordant observation which makes the rest of your memoir so delightful. [ . . . ] On the whole your musical discussions are rueful and illuminating but this one is too lengthy and unless you could dramatize your meeting with the pedantic musicologists it would be better to cut. About my third and last point you may be rather sensitive-it has to do with Robert Craft, whose image in the end is not entirely clear. One feels how much is left unsaid. Perhaps other people, possibly Auden, would not mind being quoted. But when Craft is mentioned, you fall into psychological diplomacy, ambiguity, etc. This is very different from the free mordant observation which makes the rest of your memoir so delightful. [ . . . ]

Yours affectionately,

To Louis Lasco March 5, 1973 [Chicago]

Esteemed Zahar Neoplasmich: The famous columnist [Sydney J. Harris] appears in my hometown paper. Should I, wis.h.i.+ng to glance at the Final Markets or the Obituaries, read a few of his lines by mischance, my feet begin to swell. He gives me edema. Still, I am grateful for your good intentions and your wish to share your delight with me.

You will be interested to hear that when I recently spoke at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, Benny Shapiro's brother Manny turned up with his frau and an elegant young son in a Smith Bros. beard. We reminisced about old times on Cortez St. I mentioned that I had heard from you. We decided that if you were still going to Las Vegas it was a heartening sign of virility, and the fires of life had not been banked in L. Lasco. The young man asked what he should do to become a writer. I said, ”Shave!” He was much offended, nettled, and turned away from me.

They said that Benny was selling electrical supplies. Now that capital punishment has ended he's probably selling old electric chairs. There's a story for you, a promoter who tries to peddle old electric chairs to South American dictators. For a small percentage, I give you this idea. I'm always glad to hear from you. I send you fraternal greetings.

S. B. Pamunyitzoff