Part 49 (1/2)

To Martin Amis July 24, 1994 W. Brattleboro Dear Martin, I can generally diagnose my friends' disorders by reading [their stories and novels]. I know from experience that a real comedian is at his best when he's most wretched. I don't like Freud at all but he was on target when he wrote that happiness is the remission of suffering, something he may have swiped from Schopenhauer. You will have guessed that this note is inspired by [Amis's story] ”Author, Author” in Granta Granta. It's the sort of comic x-ray that sinks the diagnostician's spirits and fills the connoisseur's heart with pure pleasure. I hear an echo here of Brutus after the a.s.sa.s.sination: We loved Caesar for his greatness but killed him because he was ambitious.

But of course writing well is also a sign of cure and recovery.

Janis who was also knocked flat-”decked” with happiness-sends love.

Yours as ever,

To Julian Behrstock September 15, 1994 W. Brattleboro Dear Julian- As you will have guessed, I am disturbed to hear that you've been ill and had major surgery. When you have bad news your generous impulse is to rea.s.sure everyone. That, I've learned, is one of your deepest traits. You could hardly have gone through a course of chemotherapy without deep-fatigue-but the Midi and some rest and musing bring back your joie de vivre joie de vivre, and your mood is upbeat.

The other problems-arrhythmia and a runaway heartbeat-one can live with. I've done that for years with large daily doses of quinine. I have other nuisance-ailments a.s.sociated with age-the medical term is presbyopia. No reason to describe those. ”Edad con sus disgracias”[115] is the t.i.tle of one of Goya's etchings. Even reasonable people are taught by life, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, to pray, and these days I include you in my stolen prayer sessions. (I like to call them meditations.) We have hardly budged from Vermont this summer. I watched the summer through the windows while scribbling away at a novel I perhaps should never have started. Life has by now prepared me to write an essay called ”How Not to Write a Novel.” Lots of critics would say it sh'd be ”Why Not to Write One.” The whole world has accepted biological (”historical”) standards. A heart flourishes, then inevitably perishes, and a higher type of the same comes into its own. The new type has a bigger mouth and stronger jaws. You shall hear from me again and soon. Not to Write One.” The whole world has accepted biological (”historical”) standards. A heart flourishes, then inevitably perishes, and a higher type of the same comes into its own. The new type has a bigger mouth and stronger jaws. You shall hear from me again and soon.

Love, To Eugene C. Kennedy November 10, 1994 Grand Case, Saint-Martin Dear Gene- The treatment is working. I put it like that because I begin to see how necessary it was for Janis to get me here-I was willing to talk about it, but of my own accord I'd never have gotten here. I just lack the character to do what's necessary. And today I see a parallel between me and the problem drinkers whose doctors send them away to be dried out. Too much festination [116], as Dr. Oliver Sacks would put it. I recommend his book Awakenings Awakenings, and the Parkinsonian case-histories in it. Sarah probably has read it. His account of festination and catatonia went straight to that waiting throbbing target, my heart. The blue of the Caribbean I see from this open door is my form of El Dopa. Festination! Festination! I had a bad case of it. I suspect that Dr. Sacks believes it's endemic. Civilized people all have it in some form or other. What I do for it is to soak in the ocean twice daily. We have no phone in our small flat (open to the breezes) and no newspapers are available. NO mail is being forwarded. My one daily lapse or cop-out-cheating on the cure-is literary. I work each morning on my I had a bad case of it. I suspect that Dr. Sacks believes it's endemic. Civilized people all have it in some form or other. What I do for it is to soak in the ocean twice daily. We have no phone in our small flat (open to the breezes) and no newspapers are available. NO mail is being forwarded. My one daily lapse or cop-out-cheating on the cure-is literary. I work each morning on my Marbles Marbles book. I may actually get that monkey off my back before X-mas. book. I may actually get that monkey off my back before X-mas.

A daily greeting in my Village days was ”off the couch by X-mas!” It was said of Jim Agee that he had had to work at to work at Time Time to pay for his a.n.a.lysis. He said it himself-Henry Luce and Sigmund Freud were in cahoots. More than half of the Lucites (or Luciferites) were then in treatment. to pay for his a.n.a.lysis. He said it himself-Henry Luce and Sigmund Freud were in cahoots. More than half of the Lucites (or Luciferites) were then in treatment.

Anyway my spirits having risen during these days of submersion in an El Dopa Caribbean, I love you with a fresh impulse. You're a darling man. I wish I could say it in the right brogue.

We return to festinating Boston Nov. 30th. Let's hope we will be able then to live by the good old slogan Festina Lente Festina Lente [ [117].

So, in the same vein-Excelsior!

Much love to both of you,

Former priest and dissident Roman Catholic Eugene C. Kennedy is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Loyola University, Chicago, and the author of many books including The Unhealed Wound: The Church and Human s.e.xuality The Unhealed Wound: The Church and Human s.e.xuality (2001) and (2001) and My Brother Joseph My Brother Joseph (1998), a memoir of his friends.h.i.+p with Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. Shortly after writing this letter, Bellow fell dangerously ill with ciguatera poisoning. For a month he was unconscious and in intensive care at Boston University Hospital. At the turn of the year he went home to the apartment on Bay State Road, where he slowly recovered. (1998), a memoir of his friends.h.i.+p with Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. Shortly after writing this letter, Bellow fell dangerously ill with ciguatera poisoning. For a month he was unconscious and in intensive care at Boston University Hospital. At the turn of the year he went home to the apartment on Bay State Road, where he slowly recovered.

1995.

In Memory of Ralph Ellison (Delivered in Bellow's absence by Joseph Mitch.e.l.l at the dinner meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Letters on April 4, 1995) Ralph Ellison, who died last year at the age of eighty, published only one novel in his lifetime. At a Bard College symposium attended by foreign celebrities, Georges Simenon who was at our table asked Ellison how many novels he had written. Hearing that there was only one, he said, ”To be a novelist you must produce many novels. You are not a novelist.” The author of hundreds of books, writing and speaking at high speed, could not stop to weigh his words. Einstein, a much deeper thinker, had said in reply to a sociable lady's question about quantum theory, ”But isn't one a lot, Madame?”

In Ralph's case it certainly was a lot. Simenon remains readable, enjoyable, but Inspector Maigret belongs to a very large family of cops or private eyes or geniuses of detection like Sherlock Holmes or the heroes of Das.h.i.+ell Hammett, Raymond Chandler et al et al. These honorable and gifted men worked at the writer's trade. Ellison did no such thing. What we witness when we read Invisible Man Invisible Man is the discovery by an artist of his true subject matter, and some fifty years after it was published this book holds its own among the best novels of the century. Toward the end of the Fifties, the Ellisons and the Bellows lived together in a spooky Dutchess County house with the Catskills on the western horizon and the Hudson River in between. As writers are natural solitaries, Ralph and I did not seek each other out during the day. A nod in pa.s.sing was enough. But late in the afternoon Ralph mixed the martinis and we did not always drink in silence. During our long conversations I came to know his views, some of which I shall now transmit in his own words: is the discovery by an artist of his true subject matter, and some fifty years after it was published this book holds its own among the best novels of the century. Toward the end of the Fifties, the Ellisons and the Bellows lived together in a spooky Dutchess County house with the Catskills on the western horizon and the Hudson River in between. As writers are natural solitaries, Ralph and I did not seek each other out during the day. A nod in pa.s.sing was enough. But late in the afternoon Ralph mixed the martinis and we did not always drink in silence. During our long conversations I came to know his views, some of which I shall now transmit in his own words: ”We did not develop as a people in isolation,” he told James McPherson in an interview. ”We developed within a context of white people. Yes, we have a special awareness, because our experience has in certain ways been different from that of white people; but it was not absolutely different.” And, again: ”I tell white kids that instead of talking about black men in a white world or black men in a white society they should ask themselves how black they are because black men have been influencing the values of the society and the art forms of the society . . . We did not develop as a people in isolation.”

”For me,” he said, ”some effort was necessary . . . before I could identify the areas of life and personality which claimed my mind beyond any limitations apparently apparently imposed by my racial ident.i.ty.” And, again: ”This was no matter of sudden insight but of slow and blundering discovery, of a struggle to stare down the deadly and hypnotic temptation to interpret the world and all its devices in terms of race.” It took great courage, in a time when racial solidarity was demanded, or exacted, from people in public life, to insist as Ralph did on the priority of art and the independence of the artist. ”Fiction,” he says, ”became the agency of my efforts to answer the questions: Who am I, what am I, how did I come to be? What should I make of the life around me? . . . What does American society mean when regarded out of my imposed by my racial ident.i.ty.” And, again: ”This was no matter of sudden insight but of slow and blundering discovery, of a struggle to stare down the deadly and hypnotic temptation to interpret the world and all its devices in terms of race.” It took great courage, in a time when racial solidarity was demanded, or exacted, from people in public life, to insist as Ralph did on the priority of art and the independence of the artist. ”Fiction,” he says, ”became the agency of my efforts to answer the questions: Who am I, what am I, how did I come to be? What should I make of the life around me? . . . What does American society mean when regarded out of my own own eyes, when informed by my eyes, when informed by my own own sense of the past and viewed by my sense of the past and viewed by my own own complex sense of the present? . . . It is quite possible,” he adds, ”that much potential fiction by Negro Americans fails precisely at this point: through the writer's refusal (often through provincialism or lack of courage or opportunism) to achieve a vision of life and a resourcefulness of craft commensurate with the complexity of their actual situation. Too often they fear to leave the uneasy sanctuary of race to take their chances in the world of art.” Ralph did no such thing. complex sense of the present? . . . It is quite possible,” he adds, ”that much potential fiction by Negro Americans fails precisely at this point: through the writer's refusal (often through provincialism or lack of courage or opportunism) to achieve a vision of life and a resourcefulness of craft commensurate with the complexity of their actual situation. Too often they fear to leave the uneasy sanctuary of race to take their chances in the world of art.” Ralph did no such thing.

I have let him speak for himself. But there is one thing more, of a personal nature, that I should like to add in closing. Often, when I think of Ralph, a line from E. E. c.u.mmings comes to me: ”Jesus, he was a handsome man,” c.u.mmings wrote-he was referring to Buffalo Bill. Ralph did not ride a watersmooth stallion, nor was he a famous marksman. But he did have the look of a man from an earlier epoch, one more sane, more serious and more courageous than our own.

To John Hunt June 18, 1995 Boston Dear John, Sorry to have been so very, very long. The reason lies partly in my illness, of which Keith [Botsford] may have told you. I was down, down, down for months. I don't always know what's going on-I've always had a serious focus problem-but this time all reality was pulled away, stored like a carpet. I may or may not have thought that I was in another world-my relations to this one have never been anything but relatively steady. Wherever I may have been, there was no ”time” there. I wasn't certifiably unconscious but neither was I in any ordinary sense conscious. After six weeks I was transferred out of intensive care to ”recovery.” ”Recovery” was a euphemism for infantile weakness. I had to learn to walk again, to go to the toilet like an adult, to tell time, etc.

How I (we!) would have loved to be with you in France. But for the time being, I have to stick around the Boston U. Hospital. Life is far from normal. I take huge doses of blood-thinners, and I am warned that to swallow two aspirins may be fatal. I do do now and then write something, and I can read again, indulge my lifelong vice for books-far too many of them. now and then write something, and I can read again, indulge my lifelong vice for books-far too many of them.

To move to the South of France would be infinitely desirable 1.) if we could find someone to buy the Vermont house and 2.) if I hadn't been undermined by pulmonary and cardiac-puzzlingly threatening (and unreal)-disorders. All the granite I depended on has turned into loose sand and gravel. This is the dereglement de tous les sens dereglement de tous les sens [ [118] Rimbaud was sold on. Poor Rimbaud, he didn't live very long whereas I, a week ago, ”celebrated” my eightieth birthday. People tell me that I look perfectly well. Sans blague! Sans blague! [ [119]

I was so so grateful for your generous letter. All best to you and to Chantal, grateful for your generous letter. All best to you and to Chantal,

John Hunt (born 1925) is a writer and scientist who during the Fifties and Sixties worked at the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris and subsequently at the Salk Inst.i.tute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, the Aspen Inst.i.tute, and the Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

To Herbert Gold June [?], 1995 Boston Dear Herb- Did you ever think we'd live to see the century end? I used to play out the mental arithmetic but never thought I'd finish off the millennium. Maybe I won't. It's not over till it's over, as the great baseball philosopher said.

Your letter dated May 24th reached me about a week ago. I was sorry to read that your brother had died. I know what these deaths are. I had two older brothers. They died ten years ago, within the same week. I find myself thinking of them daily, at odd moments-in an ongoing manner.

I have no case to make against them. I no longer blame them, as I used to do. I am now their senior and one of my responsibilities is to protect them affectionately. For that matter, I am much older than my parents too. I suppose the good do die young. We We are given more time to re-cobble our virtues and fit ourselves to die. are given more time to re-cobble our virtues and fit ourselves to die.

There does seem to have been a certain estrangement [between you and me], and perhaps the reason is mainly spatial. Separated by an entire continent we've been unable to attend to our friends.h.i.+p. But I've always had warm feelings toward you. There are, perhaps, a few incompatibilities but they aren't, and never were, serious. I value your judgment and your good opinion, and I wish you well.

Herbert Gold (born 1924) is the author of many books including The Man Who Was Not with It The Man Who Was Not with It (1956) and (1956) and Still Alive! A Temporary Condition Still Alive! A Temporary Condition (2008). (2008).

To Saul Steinberg July 28, 1995 W. Brattleboro Dear Saul- When your picture arrived I was again caught in an undertow-one of the drugs I was taking had swollen my tongue and my palate to such an extent that I was unable to swallow.

I was, in short, choking to death. And once more, rallying, I pulled through. I did however have a thoroughly disagreeable week and was unable to call you to say that your picture had been delivered. So it was no manque de politesse manque de politesse [ [120]. Having yet again fought off the forces of a.s.sa.s.sination I can now look at your harmonious composition with enjoyment. I keep it on the kitchen mantelpiece and study it over my teacup. I badly need the balancing measure and proportion I am enjoying, and feel at certain moments that I am camped in your mind, the source of equilibrium.

Yours gratefully and affectionately,

Janis and I are expecting you one day soon.

To John Hunt September 13, 1995 W. Brattleboro Dear John, I might, if I were a more gifted writer, tell you what this year has really really been like-but I can't transmit the neural creepings and the wing-beating of the spirit, and all the thoughts etc. that use me as a thoroughfare. been like-but I can't transmit the neural creepings and the wing-beating of the spirit, and all the thoughts etc. that use me as a thoroughfare.

It hasn't, all in all, been a sick summer. The strange difficulty is that I have stamina enough to see me through the morning's work, and after that I am useless useless. I take a walk, I lie down at siesta-time, the afternoon expires. I've lost the habit of writing letters. After dark, I can't go back to the desk.

I spent many evenings looking at Faulkner photos in the book you so generously sent me. I should have written to thank you but this morning is the first full one in months. [ . . . ] For the book, merci mille fois merci mille fois [ [121].