Part 37 (1/2)
Ladislas Farago (1906-1980) was the author of many World War II histories including Patton: Ordeal and Triumph Patton: Ordeal and Triumph (1964) and (1964) and Aftermath: The Search for Martin Bormann Aftermath: The Search for Martin Bormann (1974). (1974).
To Edward s.h.i.+ls September 3, 1978 Chicago My dear Edward: Vicissitudes, yes, or perhaps the increasing contrariness of elderly friends-but it is a friends.h.i.+p and we both know it, and it sustains me in times of trouble. I can bear my difficulties pretty well; I am certainly equal to them mentally. I am not quite in control of them emotionally. I am and for a long time have been ready to do without the money. If the brutal order holds in the Appeals Court, I shall have to borrow to pay my persecutors, and I have no reason to be confident in the judgment of the Court of Appeals. My experience with courts and lawyers leaves no room for optimism. I've been up to the chin in sewage for nearly ten years now. It's time I did whatever I must do to extricate myself.
The whole thing is monstrous-simply monstrous. It has taught me a great deal, though. I don't say this menacingly, or with excessive bitterness. I plan no vengeance. I mean only to say that it has expanded my understanding of human beings very considerably.
However, I did not become a writer in order to make money, nor shall I stop being one because everything is confiscated. I am not quite certain how to go forward. The more I publish, the more vulnerable I am to predators. Perhaps some sort of American samizdat samizdat is the answer. (My one joke, this sad day.) is the answer. (My one joke, this sad day.) I had always thought myself quite st.u.r.dy and resistant to knocks, but it often seems that I am not quite so strong as I had believed. I wake in the night, and do not feel very strong. I sometimes find myself praying. Not for favors of any sort, not even for help, but simply for clarification. I am not especially apprehensive about dying. What does distress me is the thought that I may have made a mess where others (never myself ) see praiseworthy achievements.
I knew that you would write to me. I told Alexandra before your letter came that I would soon hear from you. Because I do, after all, know what is what (in my own quite limited fas.h.i.+on). And I thank you from a full heart.
And you will forgive my silliness, as you always have.
Affectionately,
An Illinois Court of Appeals would uphold the lower-court ruling that had ordered Bellow to pay Susan half a million dollars in settlement of their long-standing property dispute.
To Owen Barfield September 19, 1978 Chicago Dear Owen: I think I better stop waiting for a tranquil moment. There is no tranquil moment.
What I wished to tell you at some length I will tell you briefly. We read Saving the Appearances Saving the Appearances and and Worlds Apart Worlds Apart in a seminar last April and May. It's too soon to say how well I succeeded as your interpreter. The partic.i.p.ants were Wayne Booth of the English Department, Professor Wick, a philosopher who specializes in Kant, and a young mathematician named Zable, one of my wife's colleagues who had seen a copy of in a seminar last April and May. It's too soon to say how well I succeeded as your interpreter. The partic.i.p.ants were Wayne Booth of the English Department, Professor Wick, a philosopher who specializes in Kant, and a young mathematician named Zable, one of my wife's colleagues who had seen a copy of Saving the Appearances Saving the Appearances on my table and was keen to discuss it with me. There were also two graduate students, one of them interested in Anthroposophy. Booth and the Kantian found the book ”interesting but tough,” as Huck Finn said of on my table and was keen to discuss it with me. There were also two graduate students, one of them interested in Anthroposophy. Booth and the Kantian found the book ”interesting but tough,” as Huck Finn said of Pilgrim's Progress Pilgrim's Progress . Booth was extremely sympathetic, keenly interested, Wick was laconic and pulled at his pipe and told us that we didn't really know Kant; we would be hopelessly muddled until we had put in a year or two at the Critiques of This or That. But even he found you an attractive writer. I thought I would get this brief interim report to you while my recollection of the seminar is still fresh. For the rest, the usual difficulties-no, worse than usual. I am being deprived by the courts of all my possessions. This morning I suddenly remembered a touching photograph, taken after his a.s.sa.s.sination, of Gandhi's possessions: sandals, rice bowl, eyegla.s.ses and dhoti. Can anyone with more property than that resist the powers of darkness? I make light of it, but the threat is serious. Today I was asked for an inventory of my personal belongings, and I wonder whether the court would hesitate to put them on auction. One never knows. I manage nevertheless to concentrate daily on the distinctions between the essential and inessential. . Booth was extremely sympathetic, keenly interested, Wick was laconic and pulled at his pipe and told us that we didn't really know Kant; we would be hopelessly muddled until we had put in a year or two at the Critiques of This or That. But even he found you an attractive writer. I thought I would get this brief interim report to you while my recollection of the seminar is still fresh. For the rest, the usual difficulties-no, worse than usual. I am being deprived by the courts of all my possessions. This morning I suddenly remembered a touching photograph, taken after his a.s.sa.s.sination, of Gandhi's possessions: sandals, rice bowl, eyegla.s.ses and dhoti. Can anyone with more property than that resist the powers of darkness? I make light of it, but the threat is serious. Today I was asked for an inventory of my personal belongings, and I wonder whether the court would hesitate to put them on auction. One never knows. I manage nevertheless to concentrate daily on the distinctions between the essential and inessential.
I asked you in London whether you might be willing to look at the ma.n.u.script of a novel, or a portion thereof. Are you still of the same mind, or would you rather be spared? As a friend I would advise you to take the easier option. As one of those ”writing fellows” (the term used by the indignant old lady in The Aspern Papers The Aspern Papers), you may, I hope, find it in your charitable heart to let me send you a hundred pages or so.
Very best wishes, To Isaac Bashevis Singer October 5, 1978 Chicago Dear Singer: Rachel [MacKenzie] just called with the news. Zol es aykh voyl bak.u.men Zol es aykh voyl bak.u.men [ [88].
My wife and I happily congratulate you.
On October 5, 1978, I. B. Singer became the first-and, in all probability, last-Yiddish-language writer to receive the n.o.bel Prize for Literature.
To Julian Behrstock October 9, 1978 Chicago Dear Julian: I didn't see the item in the British paper, so I don't know whether the sum was accurately reported. But it was stupendous, and the legal fees, two hundred thousand, also stupendous. If these judgments hold, I will be where I was in 1937 on the campus, living on an allowance of three bucks a week. I may ask the President to revive the WPA for my sake. When it happened, my lawyer called me and said, ”You've got to bite the bullet.” So I bit for one, two, three months. Now it's back in my cartridge belt. What's the point of biting bullets? I shall go back to writing books. I may not publish the books, because they will produce money, and the Philistines will be after me again. Samuel was right to be furious with Saul because he did not deliver all the Philistine foreskins on demand. It was wrong of Saul to be so soft-hearted. We are paying for this, now. Come-oddly-to think of it, most of the fellows who have ganged up on me are fully and legitimately circ.u.mcised. Well, to h.e.l.l with it. I'm always happy to hear from you. I'm glad you're feeling pretty good despite the wife-mistress setup. I can say nothing to you today about the Chicago-Jewish sensibilities.
Yours affectionately,
Julian Behrstock (1915-1997), an old friend from Northwestern days, had after the war moved permanently to Paris where he worked at UNESCO.
To Louis Lasco October 19, 1978 [Chicago]
Dear Arkady Ivanovich: I grieve to hear of your diminis.h.i.+ng s.e.x drive. Are you really giving up women for art? I remember a time when Chicago was one of the great cultural centers of the world, and elderly Jewish physicians used to announce that they were going to lay down the scalpel and take up the pen. For pen, read Remington. But what are you laying down?
Could I induce you to send a copy of your ma.n.u.script here? As one who has admired you for fifty years, I feel I have the right to make such a request.
Yours ever, Taras Bulba
1979.
To Elisabeth Sifton January 23, 1979 Chicago Dear Elisabeth: I, too, am sad at leaving Viking. For thirty years I was a Viking author. It was there that whatever feeling I had for monogamy expressed itself most completely. And I don't want you to think that my decision to move implied any criticism of you. You were in all respects an excellent editor, and certainly the most attractive of them all. I shall miss the good advice and the attractions. After Pat Covici died and Katie Carver entered the spirit world and Denver Lindley retired there came a hiatus during which I went it alone. Then you came along, and I wouldn't for a single instant have you think that you failed me as an editor. You have nothing to do with my decision to go elsewhere. I shall miss you too and I wish you well, and there is no reason why we shouldn't continue to laugh together when we meet.
My affectionate best,
To Barnett Singer February 12, 1979 Chicago Dear Barney: Stone walls may not a prison make but I have enough ma.n.u.scripts here for a lockup. Today I was presented with three, yours and two others of the same dimensions, all required reading sous peine d'amende sous peine d'amende [ [89]. When am I supposed to cook curry, wash the dog or examine my toes? I do expect to be in Chicago on the 25th of March and if I have not disappeared under hundreds of reams of paper I'll be glad to talk. In moderation. I don't grudge you the time but I don't want to be discomfited by your hurricane breeziness. You probably don't know what I'm talking about but I will give you a clue: My father, an old European, was incensed when one of my brothers complained to him (my father was then in his seventies) that he had never been a pal to his sons. My father justifiably exploded, ”Pal! Has he gone mad? Has he no respect for his father?” I was taught to be deferential to my seniors. If a historian can't understand that, who can?
Yours in candor,
To Bernard Malamud March 25, 1979 Chicago Dear Bern, By direct inheritance from my old man I have the habit of attending to certain necessities before going on a trip-I then find out what I consider most necessary. Alexandra and I are about to leave for Was.h.i.+ngton to attend the signing of the Egyptian treaty and I can't go without thanking you for Dubin's Lives Dubin's Lives. I was glad to get it, delighted to be moved by good writing, by intelligence, style, into a better articulated and ordered world than the one I've been living in. A first-rate book develops organs in me which I carry about in a state of latency or blindness. I've been seeing seeing better since I read better since I read Dubin Dubin. Your Nature-intimacy took me by surprise, glad surprise. You weren't moved to it by the demands of a book. It's something you've done to yourself, you've achieved it. For Jews from Chicago or New York this has to be done later in life. It's not a birthright. Not Not to be cheated of flowers and landscapes, living and dying under subway gratings or elevated trains-that's what it is. to be cheated of flowers and landscapes, living and dying under subway gratings or elevated trains-that's what it is.
The Lawrence theme didn't do much for me. I read him very closely at one time. Devout admiration, yes; not sainthood though, by a good bit. Anyway, I drove through the Lawrence territory with my dims on. What impressed me very deeply was the nasty winter, the paralyzed writer. That was all too d.a.m.n real. I've never suffered from the fatal ”block.” I've been in despair, in h.e.l.l, but if I'd been asked what was happening it would never occur to me to describe it as ”a block.”
I had great sympathy with the wife, less with f.a.n.n.y. But I tell you this naively, not critically. How could I be critical? I am too grateful for the pleasure you gave me. Perhaps I've known too much of that sort of s.e.xual sadness to be able to judge it dependably. I am disqualified, therefore; I don't trust myself in this department and I hope you won't take my uneasiness as fault-finding. Your book delighted me.
Affectionately,
To Ann Birstein April 12, 1979 Chicago Dear Ann: So Alfred thought that living with you was like living with me! I can't quite define my reaction, I never took the slightest s.e.xual interest in him. The best I could do was to appreciate his merits. But esteem, you know, is far from attraction.
Hearing that he was at South Bend, I wrote to him in a Christian spirit (what a pity the Christians have a corner on the Christian spirit; isn't there some way to break the monopoly?) and gave him my telephone number and he called me, but we were both too much in demand to make a date, and then we were snowed in for some months, so we haven't seen each other yet. I'm going to try again now that strolling weather is nearly here.