Part 40 (1/2)

To Margaret Shafer May 21, 1982 Chicago Dear Margaret- Your note did me much good. The Dean The Dean made many enemies. The powers of darkness were attracted. I seem to send impulses they readily pick up. Perhaps I should consider more earnestly what made many enemies. The powers of darkness were attracted. I seem to send impulses they readily pick up. Perhaps I should consider more earnestly what that that signifies. signifies.

When C[hanler] Chapman died the N.Y. Times N.Y. Times tried to get me to certify that he was the original Henderson, and I declined to comment. But I've often thought, half guilty, half amused, that I'd suggested to Chanler how he might emerge from chaos, I'd solved his ”ident.i.ty-problem”; and that although I'd given him some tried to get me to certify that he was the original Henderson, and I declined to comment. But I've often thought, half guilty, half amused, that I'd suggested to Chanler how he might emerge from chaos, I'd solved his ”ident.i.ty-problem”; and that although I'd given him some formal formal a.s.sistance I hadn't made him more kindly or pleasant. If anything, I'd suggested new forms of hysteria, cunning and aggression. After the book appeared he would come to Tivoli to visit me in his truck. But he was always incoherent-a non-angelic Billy Budd. The purpose of his incoherency was to startle, or frighten. What an oddity he was. a.s.sistance I hadn't made him more kindly or pleasant. If anything, I'd suggested new forms of hysteria, cunning and aggression. After the book appeared he would come to Tivoli to visit me in his truck. But he was always incoherent-a non-angelic Billy Budd. The purpose of his incoherency was to startle, or frighten. What an oddity he was.

Please remember me to Irma [Brandeis]-I didn't know of her tender attachment to cyclamens. It doesn't surprise me [ . . . ]

All best,

Mrs. Shafer had remarked in her letter that like Albert Corde, hero of The Dean's December The Dean's December, Irma Brandeis was a cultivator of cyclamens.

To Louis Lasco May 29, 1982 [Chicago]

Dear Polykarp: Many thanks for the poetical greetings. We missed you at the Tuley reunion. Not all the cla.s.smates were well. Bananas Landau didn't seem quite himself, although physically not greatly changed. With many it was, ”We meet again-and so farewell.” My sharpshooting memory brought down scores scores of targets. The ladies were flattered. ”You knew me!” One was from the third grade at Lafayette. of targets. The ladies were flattered. ”You knew me!” One was from the third grade at Lafayette.

I hope you're happy in retirement, and haven't retired on all fronts.

Yours ever, Gapon Khoraschevsky

To Eleanor Clark May 30, 1982 Chicago Dear Eleanor- I sh'd think Paolo Milano would answer your questions about [G. G.] Belli. He hasn't answered my letters. The reasons? Ill health, bitterness, general shrinkage. A cook-butler-valet takes care of him, a short peasant, a discreet death-watch kind of man. Paolo is so stooped by now that he has to force his gaze upwards when he wants to look at you. He reads more than ever-i.e. continually-and shares his bed with books. But you don't want all this, only his address.

I think I'll be able to give some money to Yaddo. A man named Brown, in N.Y., says he can sell some of my ma.n.u.scripts.

We look forward with pleasure to the summer and our annual meetings.

Affectionately,

To Alfred Kazin June 7, 1982 W. Halifax Dear Alfred, A happy birthday to you, and admiration and love and long life-everything. Never mind this and that, this and that don't matter much in the summing up.

Love from your junior by five days,

Your daughter is a charming young woman. We had drinks together in Chicago two weeks ago.

To Marion Meade June 16, 1982 W. Halifax, Vermont Dear Ms. Meade, Dorothy Parker was the nicest of all the partic.i.p.ants in the Esquire Esquire symposium mainly because she was the quietest. Miss Parker was far from young when we first met and seemed depressed when she didn't, more sharply, appear heartbroken. I can't remember that we ever had a personal conversation although I met her on several occasions. We were occasionally invited by Lillian h.e.l.lman for tea, and Lillian and Das.h.i.+ell Hammett did most of the talking. I said little because these great figures were my seniors and Miss Parker said little because she was evidently downcast. symposium mainly because she was the quietest. Miss Parker was far from young when we first met and seemed depressed when she didn't, more sharply, appear heartbroken. I can't remember that we ever had a personal conversation although I met her on several occasions. We were occasionally invited by Lillian h.e.l.lman for tea, and Lillian and Das.h.i.+ell Hammett did most of the talking. I said little because these great figures were my seniors and Miss Parker said little because she was evidently downcast.

Sincerely,

Biographer Marion Meade was researching Dorothy Parker: What Fresh h.e.l.l Is This? Dorothy Parker: What Fresh h.e.l.l Is This? which would be published in 1988. which would be published in 1988.

To Nathan Gould August 4, 1982 W. Halifax, Vermont Dear Natie: [ . . . ] I attended the Tuley reunion and it was a depressing affair, on the whole-elderly people nostalgic for youth and the Depression years. There seemed nothing for them (for us) to do but to turn into middle-cla.s.s Americans, all supplied with the same phrases and thoughts from the same sources. Some came from far away (Rudy Lapp from Oakland, Cal.) and some were crippled and required wheeling. Some, built for stability, appeared not greatly changed, like Bernice Meyer Landau. Her brother [Bananas] who seemed well preserved turned out to have a hereditary disorder affecting his memory so that he was groping, while we talked, and his new wife was deeply uneasy (but behaving well). As for some of the others you name, I haven't seen Pa.s.sin in some years. We had lunch in Chicago four or five years ago and he was in many respects like a j.a.panese mask, a bright man but devious. Freifeld a stumbling old chaser and thoroughly undistinguished lawyer. Melancholy. Miserable. George Reedy, whom I used to see in Was.h.i.+ngton when he was Johnson's press secretary, has remained lively and quite original. He's Dean of the Journalism School at Marquette, in Milwaukee. But my closest friends were Oscar and Isaac, dead for many years. In every decade I try to think what they might have been like had they lived.

As for me, Natie, I have become a sort of public man, which was not at all my intent. I thought, in my adolescent way, that I would write good books (as writing and books were understood in the Thirties) and would have been happy in the middle ranks of my trade. It would have made me wretched to be overlooked, but I wasn't at all prepared for so much notice, and I haven't been good at managing ”celebrity.” That's a long story and I shan't go into details. I can't do the many things I'm asked to do, answer the huge volume of mail, keep up with books and ma.n.u.scripts and at the same time write such things as I want and need to write. I write to you because I remember you so vividly and affectionately from the old days, and I would feel alienated from my own history, false false, if I didn't make time (something like creating a dry spot under this Niagara of mail). I'm delighted to hear from you, I'd be happy to see you, we could talk for many evenings. But to write an introduction for the collection of Mr. [Arthur] Leipzig, clearly a distinguished photographer, I would have to put aside my own ma.n.u.scripts-give up my frontline defenses against chaos.

A word about Jewish Life: I do my best, but I seldom write anything about Jewish Life that pleases Jewish Opinion. First thing I know there's a brawl, and I come out of it with a s.h.i.+ner.

All the best to you,

To Owen Barfield August 21, 1982 W. Halifax, Vermont Dear Owen: Clifford Monks sent me your review of the Dean Dean with the suggestion that I write a reply-take issue with you, perhaps? It would be inappropriate to do such a thing. I wouldn't dream of trying to overturn your opinion. Perhaps your understanding of the book is better than my own. After all, one can never answer fully for what one has written. Besides, the with the suggestion that I write a reply-take issue with you, perhaps? It would be inappropriate to do such a thing. I wouldn't dream of trying to overturn your opinion. Perhaps your understanding of the book is better than my own. After all, one can never answer fully for what one has written. Besides, the Dean Dean is not a ”fiction” in the conventional or formal sense. It is, as some people have told me, people whose judgment I value, a very strange piece of work. is not a ”fiction” in the conventional or formal sense. It is, as some people have told me, people whose judgment I value, a very strange piece of work.

I was touched by your close reading of the book and by your interest in (affection for?) its oddball author. It's natural, however, that I should read my reader, criticize the critic, even the friendly and affectionate critic, or try to make out the shape of his thoughts. Besides, I am an apprentice Steiner-reader whereas you are a respected veteran, so I am bound to take an immense interest in your views. Here is a man who has been studying Anthroposophy for fifty years. What effects has this had? What is his vision of the modern world? Etc. And I felt as I read your review that you found me very strange indeed. I was aware from our first meeting that I was far more alien to you than you were to me. American, Jew, novelist, modernist-well of course I am all of those things. And I wouldn't have the shadow of a claim on anybody's attention if I weren't the last, for a novelist who is not contemporary can be nothing at all. Rimbaud's Il faut etre absolument moderne Il faut etre absolument moderne [ [94] is self-evidently true, for me. Perhaps for you, too, but you would qualify moderne moderne in so many ways that it would no longer be the same thing. In any case, the fact that you find me so alien proves that it is not the same. And why do I say that you are less alien to me than I to you? Well, because you have qualities familiar to me: English, of an earlier generation, educated in cla.s.sics, saturated in English literature. Your history is clearer to me than mine can ever be to you. I have led an ”undescribed life,” as it were. Few Europeans really know anything about America. [Denis] Brogan knew a bit, and so does [Luigi] Barzini, but there is something really very different (not in every respect a in so many ways that it would no longer be the same thing. In any case, the fact that you find me so alien proves that it is not the same. And why do I say that you are less alien to me than I to you? Well, because you have qualities familiar to me: English, of an earlier generation, educated in cla.s.sics, saturated in English literature. Your history is clearer to me than mine can ever be to you. I have led an ”undescribed life,” as it were. Few Europeans really know anything about America. [Denis] Brogan knew a bit, and so does [Luigi] Barzini, but there is something really very different (not in every respect a good good difference) on this side of the Atlantic. And I hope you won't take offense at this, but in my opinion you failed to find the key, the musical signature without which books like mine can't be read. You won't find anything like it in any of the old manuals. There is nothing arbitrary in this newness. It originates in one's experience of the total human situation. But there is no point in lecturing on the self-consciousness of Americans and how it is to be represented, or why the reflections in the difference) on this side of the Atlantic. And I hope you won't take offense at this, but in my opinion you failed to find the key, the musical signature without which books like mine can't be read. You won't find anything like it in any of the old manuals. There is nothing arbitrary in this newness. It originates in one's experience of the total human situation. But there is no point in lecturing on the self-consciousness of Americans and how it is to be represented, or why the reflections in the Dean Dean are ”crowded” into the small corners of sentences. Without the signature the are ”crowded” into the small corners of sentences. Without the signature the Dean Dean is impossible to play. Reading becomes a labor, and then of course one needs frequent rest, and the book has to be put down. And what is this mysterious signature? It is Corde's intense pa.s.sion. If the reader misses that he has missed everything. is impossible to play. Reading becomes a labor, and then of course one needs frequent rest, and the book has to be put down. And what is this mysterious signature? It is Corde's intense pa.s.sion. If the reader misses that he has missed everything.

And this is where I think your reading goes wrong, for you see ”extremity of self-consciousness” rather than pa.s.sion, Henry James in shorthand. Not at all. Nothing like it. The Dean Dean is a hard, militant and angry book and Corde, far from being a brooding introvert, attacks Chicago (American society) with a boldness that puts him in considerable danger. But he is far more concerned to purge his understanding of false thought than to protect himself. Indeed, what is there to protect when the imagination has succ.u.mbed to trivialization and distortion? is a hard, militant and angry book and Corde, far from being a brooding introvert, attacks Chicago (American society) with a boldness that puts him in considerable danger. But he is far more concerned to purge his understanding of false thought than to protect himself. Indeed, what is there to protect when the imagination has succ.u.mbed to trivialization and distortion?

Autobiography? Only in the vaguest sense. If I had been writing about myself I would have recorded that the Dean was reading [Rudolf Steiner's] Leading Thoughts Leading Thoughts and and The Michael Mystery The Michael Mystery, and that he saw himself between Lucifer in the East and Ahriman in the West. It's not so much ”unwillingness to essay the leap beyond” extremity of self-consciousness as it is dependable and certain knowledge of what the leap will carry you into that is the problem.

I'm quite sure that I haven't changed your mind about anything. I wasn't really trying. I esteem you just as you are.

Yours with best wishes,

About the ”leap beyond”: ”certain knowledge” isn't it either, but it would have to be a leap into a world of which one has had some experience. I have had foreshadowings, very moving adumbrations, but the whole vision of reality must change in every particular and the idols [must be] dismissed. Then one can take flight. It can't be done by fiat, however much one may long for it.

”East, West, and Saul Bellow,” Barfield's review of The Dean's December The Dean's December, had appeared in Towards Towards.