Saul Bellow_ Letters Part 33

1974.

To The New York Times The New York Times January 7, 1974 Chicago, Ill.

To the Editor: Andrei Sakharov and four other Soviet intellectuals have appealed to "decent people throughout the world" to try to protect Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from persecution.

The word "hero," long in disrepute, has been redeemed by Solzhenitsyn. He has had the courage, the power of mind and the strength of spirit to speak the truth to the entire world. He is a man of perfect intellectual honor and, in his moral strength, he is peculiarly Russian. To the best Russian writers of this h.e.l.lish century it has been perfectly clear that only the power of the truth is equal to the power of the state.

It is to be hoped that the Brezhnevs and the Kosygins will be capable of grasping what the behavior of such a man means to the civilized world. Persecution of Solzhenitsyn, deportation, confinement in a madhouse or exile will be taken as final evidence of complete moral degeneracy in the Soviet regime.

We cannot expect our diplomats to abandon their policy of detente detente (whatever that may mean) or our great corporations to break their business contracts with Russia, but physicists and mathematicians, biologists, engineers, artists and intellectuals should make it clear that they stand by Solzhenitsyn. It would be the completest betrayal of principle to fail him. Since America is the Soviet Government's partner in (whatever that may mean) or our great corporations to break their business contracts with Russia, but physicists and mathematicians, biologists, engineers, artists and intellectuals should make it clear that they stand by Solzhenitsyn. It would be the completest betrayal of principle to fail him. Since America is the Soviet Government's partner in detente, detente, Americans have a special responsibility in this matter. Americans have a special responsibility in this matter.

What Solzhenitsyn has done in revealing the unchecked brutality of Stalinism, he has done also for us. He has reminded every one of us what we owe to truth.

To Alfred Kazin March 20, 1974 Chicago Dear Alfred: Your letter came on a day when I had a genuine grief, and that helped me to keep matters in perspective. [ . . . ] I have never met Mr. [Philip] n.o.bile. I can't remember that I ever wrote to him or spoke to him. Are you sure that I did say the things he attributes to me? Have you any real evidence that I actually said them-whatever they are? By living in Chicago I hoped to avoid all this sort of literary nastiness but there's evidently no way to avoid it. So far as I can see this sort of slander and idiocy is all the literary culture we have left.

It's true that I didn't like your review of Sammler Sammler. I didn't dislike it more than other pieces of yours, but I disliked it. It appeared more than a year after publication of the book and I had heard that an earlier and more friendly review had been rejected by the editors, but knowing what gossip is I did not take this to be a fact. It was the conclusion of your piece-"G.o.d lives!"-that offended me. You meant evidently that I was a megalomaniac. But this didn't seem to me to be literary criticism. About my books you may say what you like. (I seldom reply either to praise or to blame, which is why you heard no "peep" out of me when you wrote the introduction to Seize the Day Seize the Day-was an acknowledgment necessary?) For that matter, you may say what you please about my character, too. You haven't much gift for satire and "G.o.d lives!" didn't hurt much. What offended me was that you were not reviewing my novel, you were saying that its author was a wickedly deluded lunatic. As for [V. S.] Pritchett, I may not have cared much for his opinion of Herzog Herzog and perhaps I muttered in my whiskers about it. That again is no great matter. But how do and perhaps I muttered in my whiskers about it. That again is no great matter. But how do you you know what I said? And why didn't you ask me, as an old friend, whether I had really expressed myself in that manner? Your complaint is based on nothing but silliness, gossip and slander. know what I said? And why didn't you ask me, as an old friend, whether I had really expressed myself in that manner? Your complaint is based on nothing but silliness, gossip and slander.

I know my own sins well enough. They distress me, and I struggle with them. You may not believe this but I can, oddly enough, bear to be corrected. Unfortunately, I found nothing very helpful in your letter. Nor does your huffiness at the Century Club contribute much to the improvement of my character or the progress of the species.

"Though He Slay Me . . . ," Kazin's review of Mr. Sammler's Planet Mr. Sammler's Planet, had appeared in The New York Review of Books. The New York Review of Books.

To Daniel Fuchs April 10, 1974 Chicago Dear Daniel- What do I think? For one thing you know modern literature; for another you write intelligently; you correctly describe the course I took and my view of modernism; you are right about my Flaubertian and Lawrencian criticism; not quite right about my hostility towards Eliot-Eliot I respect more than you would guess, but on the evidence you are correct.

This having been said, let me add that I don't like to read about myself-I recoil from it, heart and bowels. That is, in its own way, self-criticism. I'm not ready for judgment, the facts aren't in; I know I've done wrong; we haven't gotten to the pith and nucleus yet. We're seeing the limbs, the heart and belly aren't in the picture yet (etc.). Why so slow? I can't say. Maybe it's the situation; maybe a certain timidity or tardiness or sluggishness or laziness-or sleep (Henderson, via Sh.e.l.ley, wants to burst the spirit's sleep). But you should know that I have learned (gathered, inferred) one awful thing from you. This is that I've been arguing too much-debating, infighting, polemicizing. The real thing is unfathomable. You can't get it down to distinct or clear opinion. Sensing this, I have always had intelligence enough (or the intuition) to put humor between myself and final claims. And that hasn't been enough by any means. Hattie in "The Yellow House" and Henderson Henderson and "The Old System" seem to me my most interesting things because they are not argued. You've made me see this more plainly and I'm much obliged. and "The Old System" seem to me my most interesting things because they are not argued. You've made me see this more plainly and I'm much obliged. Sammler Sammler isn't even a novel. It's a dramatic essay of some sort, wrung from me by the crazy Sixties. The trouble, in these mad times, is that so many adjustments and examinations have to be made for the sake of some balance and nothing else, and the expenditure of mental energy for mere equilibrium is too costly. isn't even a novel. It's a dramatic essay of some sort, wrung from me by the crazy Sixties. The trouble, in these mad times, is that so many adjustments and examinations have to be made for the sake of some balance and nothing else, and the expenditure of mental energy for mere equilibrium is too costly.

Anyway-many thanks and good luck.

Daniel Fuchs's Saul Bellow: Vision and Revision Saul Bellow: Vision and Revision would appear in 1984. It remains among the best accounts of Bellow's work. would appear in 1984. It remains among the best accounts of Bellow's work.

To Ann Birstein May 22, 1974 Chicago Dear Ann- My correspondence with Alfred was disagreeable, so I didn't a.s.sociate you with it at all. You and I have never had disagreeable relations. I hope we never shall.

There used to be something like a literary life in this country, but the mad, ferocious Sixties tore it all to bits. Nothing remains but gossip and touchiness and anger. I'm past being distressed by it-I mean merely distressed.

So there it is! n.o.body will speak for you to me. One of these days I hope we will have our own private conversation. It's been a long time.

As ever,

To Lionel Trilling July 7, 1974 [Carb.o.n.e.ras, Almeria, Spain]

Dear Lionel: You may think me silly when you read a piece I've written for Harper's Harper's. I've had regretful second thoughts about it, myself. Such remarks as I make about you are based solely on your Commentary Commentary essay "Authenticity and the Modern Unconscious" and refer only to the first part and the impossibility of being held "spellbound." It was certainly wrong of me not to read the whole book before sounding off. I feel guilty-no, that won't do-I feel remorseful about it. You do, however, appear to agree with the views of Eliot and Walter Benjamin, and you do say that the narrative past has lost its authenticating power, and perhaps you are too ready to take for permanent what I see to be a mood. What is permanent in this age of upheavals is hard to make out, but I am reluctant to grant moods their second papers. For writers the most important question is simply, What is interesting? I try, inadequately and frivolously, to say something in my article about what it is that intellectuals do or do not find interesting. I've thrown no light on this, and perhaps I've even thickened the darkness a little, but the matter was worth mentioning. I take it we agree, as square old liberals, that without individuals human life ends in a cold glutinous porridge-despite our different opinions as to what makes an "ident.i.ty." Freudian theory is, to me, another story, albeit a fascinating one. I take the Unconscious to be what we don't know, and don't see that it advances us much to take this unknown psychologically. Why not metaphysically? However, I prefer to remain an amateur in these matters. What I wish to say here is that it was idiotic of me to fix on one chapter of your book. I shall get a copy of it when I come back from Spain later in the month and read it attentively. essay "Authenticity and the Modern Unconscious" and refer only to the first part and the impossibility of being held "spellbound." It was certainly wrong of me not to read the whole book before sounding off. I feel guilty-no, that won't do-I feel remorseful about it. You do, however, appear to agree with the views of Eliot and Walter Benjamin, and you do say that the narrative past has lost its authenticating power, and perhaps you are too ready to take for permanent what I see to be a mood. What is permanent in this age of upheavals is hard to make out, but I am reluctant to grant moods their second papers. For writers the most important question is simply, What is interesting? I try, inadequately and frivolously, to say something in my article about what it is that intellectuals do or do not find interesting. I've thrown no light on this, and perhaps I've even thickened the darkness a little, but the matter was worth mentioning. I take it we agree, as square old liberals, that without individuals human life ends in a cold glutinous porridge-despite our different opinions as to what makes an "ident.i.ty." Freudian theory is, to me, another story, albeit a fascinating one. I take the Unconscious to be what we don't know, and don't see that it advances us much to take this unknown psychologically. Why not metaphysically? However, I prefer to remain an amateur in these matters. What I wish to say here is that it was idiotic of me to fix on one chapter of your book. I shall get a copy of it when I come back from Spain later in the month and read it attentively.

Yours apologetically, Trilling's essay in Commentary Commentary was an excerpt from his Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, published in book form as was an excerpt from his Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, published in book form as Sincerity and Authenticity Sincerity and Authenticity. Bellow's essay in Harper's Harper's was "Machines and Storybooks," to which Trilling would respond angrily, ending all contact between them. was "Machines and Storybooks," to which Trilling would respond angrily, ending all contact between them.

To David Peltz July 14, 1974 [Carb.o.n.e.ras, Almeria, Spain]

Dear David, I'm sorry you feel hurt. I'm baffled as well. Three years ago Bette [Howland] told you that I was writing about you. You were angry and forbade it. It wasn't you you who were the subject. People have written about me. Their me is not me. It couldn't matter less. What matters is that good things be written. Dear G.o.d, how we need them! [ . . . ] I promised not to write Your Life. But this was all I who were the subject. People have written about me. Their me is not me. It couldn't matter less. What matters is that good things be written. Dear G.o.d, how we need them! [ . . . ] I promised not to write Your Life. But this was all I could could promise. We've known each other forty-five years and told each other thousands and thousands of anecdotes. And now, on two bars suggested by one of your anecdotes, I blew a riff. Riffs are irrepressible. Furthermore, no one should repress them. I created two characters and added the toilets and the Playboy Club and the fence and the skysc.r.a.per. What harm is there in that? Your facts are unharmed by my version. Writers, artists, friends, are not the Chicago t.i.tle and Trust Company or the Material Supply Corp. These aren't questions of property, are they? It might even make you happy that in this world writers still promise. We've known each other forty-five years and told each other thousands and thousands of anecdotes. And now, on two bars suggested by one of your anecdotes, I blew a riff. Riffs are irrepressible. Furthermore, no one should repress them. I created two characters and added the toilets and the Playboy Club and the fence and the skysc.r.a.per. What harm is there in that? Your facts are unharmed by my version. Writers, artists, friends, are not the Chicago t.i.tle and Trust Company or the Material Supply Corp. These aren't questions of property, are they? It might even make you happy that in this world writers still exist exist. And I should think it would touch you that I was moved to put a hand on your shoulder and wanted to remember you as I took off for the moon. For what you think is so major is really quite minor, a small feel taken by your goofy friend to rea.s.sure him as he got going. Your facts, three or four of them, got me off the ground. You can't grudge me that and still be Dave Peltz.

Now, David the nice old man who wants his collection of memory-toys to play with in old age is not you! You harm yourself with such fantasies. For the name of the game is not Social Security. What an error! Social Security is an entirely different game. The name of the game is Give All. You are welcome to all my facts. You know them, I give them to you. If you have the strength to pick them up, take them with my blessing. Touch them with your imagination and I will kiss your hands. What, trunk-loads and h.o.a.rds of raw material? What you fear as the risk risk of friendship, namely that I may take from the wonderful h.o.a.rd, is really the risk of friendship because I have the power to lift a tuft of wool from a bush and make something of it. I learned, I paid my tuition most painfully. So I know how to transform common matter. And when I give that transformation, has that no value for you? How many people in Gary, Chicago, the USA, can you look to for that, David? As for me, I long for others to do it. I thirst for it. So should you. of friendship, namely that I may take from the wonderful h.o.a.rd, is really the risk of friendship because I have the power to lift a tuft of wool from a bush and make something of it. I learned, I paid my tuition most painfully. So I know how to transform common matter. And when I give that transformation, has that no value for you? How many people in Gary, Chicago, the USA, can you look to for that, David? As for me, I long for others to do it. I thirst for it. So should you.

I'll be back from Spain in about ten days. When we talk I will make a particular effort to understand your feelings. When you think about me, remember that we've known each other since about 1929 and make an effort for my sake to understand the inevitability of your appearing among the words I write. And if you think that your friend Bellow, who loves you, is on the whole a good thing, not a bad one, let be. Let be, let be, for G.o.d's sake. Let me give what I can, as I can.

Love,

Peltz had been angered by the appearance, in January, of an excerpt from Humboldt's Gift Humboldt's Gift in in Playboy Playboy that made use of an episode from his life. that made use of an episode from his life.

To James Laughlin August 13, 1974 Dear J.L.- Monroe Engel is reminded reminded of Delmore, perhaps, but [in of Delmore, perhaps, but [in Humboldt's Gift Humboldt's Gift] I am writing of a composite part, inevitably. Sometimes I feel there wasn't a whole man in the lot, and I include myself as a fragment. Life, ourselves a.s.sisting, broke everyone up.

I should should write something about Delmore for the collection you want to publish. I'd like to, but I can't promise anything until I've pried this albatross off my neck. write something about Delmore for the collection you want to publish. I'd like to, but I can't promise anything until I've pried this albatross off my neck.

Yes, I did love Delmore. I believe that you did, too. How comically he loused us all up. It was a privilege to be worked over by him.

When I've read my last galley I'll be free to make promises-and I would like to say a few words about Delmore. I see that you continue to be generous toward him. And I do think he was an important writer.

Anyway, there it is.

All best wishes, To Louis Lasco October 1, 1974 [Chicago]

Dear Luigi- I have noted your new address, and the fact Uncle Benjy had a pet shop. Poor Benjy. If you or I had a pet shop it would be funny. Why is it so sad that Benjy should sell puppies and birds? No gift for life, poor soul.

You ought to subscribe to the Daily News Daily News. Do you more good than Las Vegas.

Affectionately, Yakima Canuti

To Philip Roth October 14, 1974 Chicago Dear Philip- Of course, I'm pleased, delighted, honored. Lord! Can this bello maestro bello maestro be me? What a nice thing. be me? What a nice thing.

It was obvious to me in 1956 when I came to Chicago and read your stories that you were very good. Over the years, I've muttered words to this effect when your name came up in conversation but (characteristically) I never said it to you.

I was highly entertained by your piece in the New York Review [of Books] New York Review [of Books]. I didn't quite agree-that's too much to expect-but I shall slowly think over what you said. My anaconda method. I go into a long digestive stupor. Of course I am not a Freudian. For one fierce interval I was a Reichian. At the moment I have no handle of any sort. I can neither be picked up nor put down.

All best wishes,

Roth had written asking permission to dedicate his essay collection Reading Myself and Others Reading Myself and Others to Bellow. His essay in to Bellow. His essay in The New York Review of Books The New York Review of Books was "Imagining Jews." was "Imagining Jews."

1975.

To Meyer Schapiro January 21, 1975 Chicago Dear Meyer- As I read your book, I kept thinking how much better you do your work than I do mine, and how superior your subject is-Moses with his arms held up, and Aaron and Joshua and Rembrandt's Jacob blessing the songs of Joseph. I, by contrast, have such odd people to deal with. Though I don't doubt that I am greatly to blame. Probably there's far more in them than I can see or bring out. Still I do think that I was quite faithful to Von Humboldt Fleisher. I was pleased by your letter, heartened, moved by it. I know that if I satisfy your standards I've done what ought to have been done.

Now I'm wondering what you'll think of the book as a whole. Just now I'm preparing it for the printer and I'm having severe emotional ups and downs as I read it. Lawrence said he cast off his sickness in writing and I understand that thoroughly. On the other hand, looking at what you've set down you see nothing, at times, except except the sickness. the sickness.

The letters I've had from readers of the Esquire Esquire excerpts haven't all been pleasant. Dead-poet cults are quick to form and the cultists are peculiarly psychopathic and offensive. One of them accuses me of doing with Humboldt what Wallace Markfield did with Isaac Rosenfeld in an awful book called excerpts haven't all been pleasant. Dead-poet cults are quick to form and the cultists are peculiarly psychopathic and offensive. One of them accuses me of doing with Humboldt what Wallace Markfield did with Isaac Rosenfeld in an awful book called To an Early Grave To an Early Grave-I'd be driven up the wall if I were still agile enough to climb walls.

I hope to see you when I'm in New York next.

Yours most affectionately,

"Burdens of a Lone Survivor," an excerpt from Humboldt's Gift Humboldt's Gift, had appeared in the December issue of Esquire Esquire.

To Barnett Singer January 27, 1975 Chicago Dear Mr. Singer, If I don't answer all your notes it's only because I'm always in the position of someone without a pilot's license trying to land a Boeing 747. But I will say this of Gore Vidal: He's a specialist in safe scandal. Whenever he steps onto the Senate floor he's already got the necessary votes in his inside pocket. Yes, I am rather fond of him. But I look for no surprises when he rises to speak.

As for me, I'm still there trying.

Sincerely yours,

To Melvin Tumin [n.d.] [Chicago]

Dear Mel- Now I'm I'm delinquent. It seems I have too many things going all at once and all keeping me in that essential state of turmoil which, Pascal says, prevents people ( delinquent. It seems I have too many things going all at once and all keeping me in that essential state of turmoil which, Pascal says, prevents people (saves them!) from thinking about salvation. I b.u.mp along among unfinished works, promises unkept, things undone, lawsuits without end and the rest of the weak comic furniture of Life, that grand enterprise. Einstein could have used the time to find out more about light. But I must say in my own behalf that I manage to get some pleasing pages written. them!) from thinking about salvation. I b.u.mp along among unfinished works, promises unkept, things undone, lawsuits without end and the rest of the weak comic furniture of Life, that grand enterprise. Einstein could have used the time to find out more about light. But I must say in my own behalf that I manage to get some pleasing pages written.

I was amused by your conversation with Harold [Rosenberg], the King of the N.Y. intellectuals (old style). He is a grand old man. Sometimes he oddly resembles his late friend Paul Goodman (not one of my favorites). Their views on poetry are similar. It used to annoy Harold when I said that Paul wrote like one of A.S. Neill's Summerhill kids ("creative-writing" for s.e.xually free kiddie cats). Here the paper ends, but not my affection for you.

Love to Sylvia,

To Mark Smith April 15, 1975 Chicago Dear Mark, In great haste-I'm correcting proofs-I want to say that I admired The Death of the Detective The Death of the Detective and that I sent a sub-recommendation to the Guggenheim. I observe that people like Tillie Olsen and Lionel Trilling got fellowships but that your name was not on the list. At least I didn't see you on it and I was disturbed on your behalf and vexed with that obese Gordon Ray whom I sometimes see at the Century Club lowering his four-hundred-pound f.a.n.n.y into a greatly-to-be-pitied chair. His role in the perfect Republic would have been that of third understudy to Laird Cregar (do you remember that fat actor?) in a vile Victorian thriller called and that I sent a sub-recommendation to the Guggenheim. I observe that people like Tillie Olsen and Lionel Trilling got fellowships but that your name was not on the list. At least I didn't see you on it and I was disturbed on your behalf and vexed with that obese Gordon Ray whom I sometimes see at the Century Club lowering his four-hundred-pound f.a.n.n.y into a greatly-to-be-pitied chair. His role in the perfect Republic would have been that of third understudy to Laird Cregar (do you remember that fat actor?) in a vile Victorian thriller called The Lodger The Lodger. What can one do? Of course you have got to lose your innocence. It took me six decades to do it.

With indignation towards them and best wishes to you,

Mark Smith (born 1935) is the author also of Smoke Street Smoke Street (1984) and other novels. (1984) and other novels.

To Joyce Carol Oates April 15, 1975 Chicago Dear Miss Oates, When I answered your letter of December 20th I said that I would be glad to do the interview-by-mail as soon as I sent off Humboldt's Gift, Humboldt's Gift, an amusing and probably unsatisfactory novel. Well, it went to the printer a few weeks ago and while I was waiting for the galleys I began to deal with your stimulating questions. Before I could make much progress the galleys began to arrive in batches so I have to put off the project again. When I was younger I used to think that my good intentions were somehow communicated to people by a secret telepathic wig-wag system. It was therefore disappointing to see at last that unless I spelt things out I couldn't hope to get credit for goodwill. I expect to be through with proofs in about two weeks and you should be receiving pages from me in about a month's time. an amusing and probably unsatisfactory novel. Well, it went to the printer a few weeks ago and while I was waiting for the galleys I began to deal with your stimulating questions. Before I could make much progress the galleys began to arrive in batches so I have to put off the project again. When I was younger I used to think that my good intentions were somehow communicated to people by a secret telepathic wig-wag system. It was therefore disappointing to see at last that unless I spelt things out I couldn't hope to get credit for goodwill. I expect to be through with proofs in about two weeks and you should be receiving pages from me in about a month's time.

I'm not sure that you will want a photograph of me in your new journal. It seems that after I have finished a novel, I always want to write an essay to go with it, hitting everyone on the head. I did that when Henderson the Rain King Henderson the Rain King appeared, and a very bad idea it was too-guaranteed misinterpretation of my novel. You shouldn't give readers two misinterpretable texts at the same time. And if you do publish my picture I will join the ten most wanted. appeared, and a very bad idea it was too-guaranteed misinterpretation of my novel. You shouldn't give readers two misinterpretable texts at the same time. And if you do publish my picture I will join the ten most wanted.

Yours most earnestly and sincerely,