Saul Bellow_ Letters Part 52

That's not the outstanding defect of IMAC IMAC. Your reader, out of respect for your powers, is more than willing to go along with you. He will not, as I was not, be able to go along with your Ira, probably the least attractive of all your characters. I a.s.sume that you can no more bear Ira than the reader can. But you stand loyally by this cast-iron klutz-a big strong stupid man who attracts you for reasons invisible to me.

Now there is a real mystery about Communists in the West, to limit myself to those. How were they able to accept Stalin-one of the most monstrous tyrants ever? You would have thought that the Stalin-Hitler division of Poland, the defeat of the French which opened the way to Hitler's invasion of Russia, would have led CP members to reconsider their loyalties. But no. When I landed in Paris in 1948 I found that the intellectual leaders (Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, etc.) remained loyal despite the Stalin sea of blood. Well, every country, every government has its its sea, or lake, or pond. Still Stalin remained " sea, or lake, or pond. Still Stalin remained "the hope"-despite the clear parallel with Hitler. hope"-despite the clear parallel with Hitler.

But to keep it short-the reason: The reason lay in the hatred of one's own country. Among the French it was the old confrontation of "free spirits," or artists, with the ruling bourgeoisie. In America it was the fight against the McCarthys, the House Committees investigating subversion, etc. that justified the Left, the followers of Henry Wallace, etc. The main enemy was at home (Lenin's WWI slogan). If you opposed the CP you were a McCarthyite, no two ways about it.

Well, it was a deep and perverse stupidity. It didn't require a great mind to see what Stalinism was. But the militants and activists refused to reckon with the simple facts available to everybody.

Enough: You will say that all of that is acknowledged in IMAC IMAC. Yes, and no. You tell us that Ira is a brute, a murderer. But who else is there? Ira and Eve are at the core of your novel-and what does this pair amount to?

One of your persistent themes is the purgation one can obtain only through rage. The forces of aggression are liberating, etc. And I can see that as a legitimate point of view. Okay if your characters are t.i.tans. But Eve is simply a pitiful woman and Sylphid is a pampered, wicked fat girl with a bison hump. These are not t.i.tans.

There aren't many people to whom I can be so open. We've always been candid with each other and I hope we will continue, both of us, to say what we think. You'll be sore at me, but I believe that you won't cast me off forever.

Ever yours,

To John Auerbach and Nola Chilton February 23, 1998 Brookline Dear John and Nola, [ . . . ] Many years ago Bobby Kennedy several times said to me that he was concerned with small dictators who might (easily) produce a nuclear device. One of the things I have always suspected was that aberrant types would somehow find means to realize their mad megalomaniacal dreams. The tendency is, in hundreds of millions of instances, to translate imagination into actualities. You think of blowing up a federal building with a bomb made of cheap components including a sack of fertilizer, and you load your ingredients into a parked truck and it goes off and kills men, women and children. So there's no limit to the possibilities for cranks [ . . . ] Meantime our president is beset by s.e.x problems. It's a tribute to FDR and even to Jack Kennedy that their s.e.x problems didn't prevent them from governing the country, but I'm not altogether sure that Clinton can carry Monica while conducting foreign affairs. All I can definitely say about this historic episode is that it shows us what a powerful aphrodisiac great politics can be.

Meanwhile most of my contemporaries have gone to the next world, and it's no more than reasonable that I should be preoccupied with the next world, and it is natural also that at my age one should think more often about friends still living.

I hope Chris Walsh has sent you copies of The Republic of Letters The Republic of Letters. We have just published #3 #3.

Much love to both of you, To Teddy Kollek April 14, 1998 Brookline Dear Teddy, I felt when Isaiah Berlin died that I should send you a note, but then I was too dreary to do it. Instead I recalled the weeks when I was at the Mishkenot and Isaiah and his wife were at the King David just up the street.

Later on I dined with Isaiah several times in Oxford and we reminisced pleasantly about those days in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem you had totally transformed.

I often feel these days that death is a derelict or what Americans nowadays call a street person who has moved into the house with me and whom I can find no way to get rid of. The only solution is to make him a member of the family.

Enough of these gloomy reflections and fantasies. I am trying to express solidarity and exchange sympathies with an old friend who is, I hope, well and happy.

With affection,

To Albert Glotzer June 3, 1998 W. Brattleboro Dear Al- I used to be an eager letter writer, but it fills me with self-disgust now to face the growing pile of unanswered mail. Age is probably to blame-since age is there, I make use of it. Life becomes silenter and silenter. I notice that most of the mental work of the old (the work of this old man, at least) is done in silence. I find myself often talking to the dead (for instance). Others have confessed to me that they do it too. Even rationalist atheists and materialists will admit, if they're old enough, that they expect to meet their mothers in the afterlife.

I marvel at your refusal to give in. I too am a sc.r.a.pper. Giving in to sickness is inconceivable. It's very strange that after thirty years of heart trouble (fibrillations) I am free from symptoms. I'm rid of the pills. On the other hand, walking has become painful. My arthritic joints find it hard to stand up from a seated position. But I makh zikh nit visndik makh zikh nit visndik, in Yiddish. The translation is: "Ignore it!" We are forced to do our business, day by day, between narrowing limits and reduced perspectives. Again, it's makh zikh nit visndik makh zikh nit visndik. [ . . . ]

Much love to you, and to Maggie, To Sophie Wilkins June 17, 1998 W. Brattleboro Dear Sophie, [ . . . ] The delicious chocolates you sent are in the cupboard. Janis makes a point of eating chocolates only on birthdays-excuse me, family birthdays-and anniversaries. I am on my honor never to eat precious candies without permission, but of course I do eat them. I steal them. I am extremely fond of truffles. Of course I shouldn't eat them. I am not desperately sick but neither am I in the best of health. Atrial fibrillation is my chief complaint. Mostly I ignore such troubles. I do b.i.t.c.h from time to time, but at heart I still a.s.sume that nothing has changed much since childhood. Maybe this is what psychiatrists mean when they say that a patient is "in denial."

I am very happy to hear that Karl is improving. He has very justifiably taken a long holiday from injustice and idiocy. Maybe he will feel well enough by and by to take up the sword once more. As for Thomas Bernhard, he is a very strange bird indeed. I read him with respect and even admiration but he doesn't reach my warmer feelings. What he does reach is my own bottomless hatred of the n.a.z.is, especially the Austrian ones. He would have you think that virtually all Austrians were and remain n.a.z.is. I see no reason to disagree. When I read Karl's lovely poem about Auden's grave I wondered why Auden should have wished to pa.s.s his last years [at Kirchstetten] in the society of such creeps. I seem to recall that he even addressed affectionate lines to some of them. But then Austria was always a monument to bourgeois comforts, and in his declining years Auden too loved pottering in the kitchen and sleeping in bourgeois feather beds.

Janis also sends her love,

To Philip Roth September 15, 1998 W. Brattleboro Dear Philip- So sorry about the delay.

Now that I am in real earnest an old guy, requiring orderliness, I am in circ.u.mstances always of disorder-of chaos.

Ever your pal, To Evelyn Nef August 8, 1998 Brookline Dear Evvy, I would much sooner have paid you a visit but as Janis has told you the doctors ordered me to come and have a pacemaker installed. I have had my problems with doctors during this long life of mine. My medical history goes back to 1923 when my appendix was removed in Montreal and I d.a.m.ned near died of peritonitis. After that I was quite sick in Chicago and after that very sick in Boston. And now I am eighty-three years old and still stepping into the batter's box to try for one more hit. So my pacemaker and I will be happy to come and pay a visit and we shall all sit down together in your grand new house. Janis and I-and Walter [Pozen]-are looking forward with antic.i.p.ated happiness to seeing you again.

Yours with love,

Author, linguist, psychotherapist and philanthropist Evelyn Stefansson Nef (1913-2009) was the widow of John U. Nef, Bellow's longtime colleague in the Committee on Social Thought. Previously, she had been the lover of Buckminster Fuller, the wife of puppeteer Bil Baird, and the wife of explorer Vihjalmur Stefansson.

To Richard Stern November 15, 1998 Brookline Dear Richard, Your notes always give me great comfort.

Am I all right? No, just partly right. My memory, of which I was West-Point proud, keeps disappointing me. Last week I couldn't remember Katharine Hepburn's name and the name of her lover-Somebody Tracy eluded me for several days. And I actually have to go back to reference works, to my great shame. Well, perhaps G.o.d is trying to tell me that though I could remember everything, I didn't really understand anything. The pacemaker, however, keeps my heart regular, and I can drink all the wine I like at dinner and thumb my nose at caffeine.

I wouldn't throw in the towel-yet. A little anecdote to ill.u.s.trate; I dug it up last month in writing a note to Jack Miles (you'll see this for yourself in the next number of TROL TROL): An old man lives in the forest alone and gathers winter fuel and finds himself one day unable to lift his burden of sticks. He raises his eyes to heaven and says, "O G.o.d, send me Death," and when Death comes Death says, "Did you send for me, sir?" The old man replies, "Yes, lend me a hand with these sticks. Just put them on my shoulder and I'll do the rest."

You may want that towel one day to wipe your inspired brow.

Say h.e.l.lo to Alane.

Yours ever,

1999.

To Edward Simmons June 3, 1999 W. Brattleboro Dear Edward: Your mother tells me how well you're doing. You're off to college now and, inevitably, I think of my own college days back in the Thirties. Those were the Depression years and we were given to understand that our parents were hard-put to raise two dollars for our tuition. Three hundred dollars a year were no trifle, in those lean times, and I was often reminded that idling and drinking were forbidden. A handful of people had money to burn but the immense majority were flat-broke, very nearly down and out. Nevertheless I was often playing pool when I should have been in cla.s.s. Luckily I was also a smart Jewish kid and read tons of books on my own so that I pa.s.sed my exams-I squeaked by in my early years. It was only in my junior year that I began to do better, graduating with honors and a fellowship to the University of Wisconsin.

The powers of your own mind will turn against you if you don't master them. They'll cut you down. You seem, to go by your record, to have discovered this for yourself.

But enough of this sententious stuff. I congratulate you. You're doing just fine, and I am pleased for your own sake, and for your parents' as well.

Congratulations.

Your G.o.dfather,

To Werner Dannhauser October 6, 1999 Brookline Dear Werner: It's about time you heard from me.

I promised to eliminate what you thought to be objectionable material and I wrote a revised version of Ravelstein Ravelstein. It took quite a lot of doing and the doing went against the grain. When I was done the results were highly unsatisfactory; what was lacking was the elasticity provided by sin. In the midst of this lengthy, time-consuming and ultimately sterile procedure I remembered how displeased Bloom had been with The Dean's December The Dean's December. He objected to the false characterization of Alexandra and he didn't spare me one bit. But now the shoe is on the other foot and I saw no reason why I should do in Ravelstein Ravelstein what Allan himself had so strongly objected to in the earlier novel. After all, I was trying to satisfy Allan's wishes, and I couldn't have it both ways. I couldn't be both truthful and camouflaged. So I did as I think he would have wished me to do. And I know that I am going to alienate most of my Straussian friends. Some of these old friends I can well afford to lose, but you are not in that number. In your case, the loss would be hard to bear. Believe me, none of this is literary frivolity. I've taken the whole matter with great-the greatest-seriousness. And I hope I've made clear to you the sort of bind I found myself in. I what Allan himself had so strongly objected to in the earlier novel. After all, I was trying to satisfy Allan's wishes, and I couldn't have it both ways. I couldn't be both truthful and camouflaged. So I did as I think he would have wished me to do. And I know that I am going to alienate most of my Straussian friends. Some of these old friends I can well afford to lose, but you are not in that number. In your case, the loss would be hard to bear. Believe me, none of this is literary frivolity. I've taken the whole matter with great-the greatest-seriousness. And I hope I've made clear to you the sort of bind I found myself in. I should should expect to lose friends, but I don't expect you to be one of them. I don't think much remains to be said. I often give thought to the Jewish category of expect to lose friends, but I don't expect you to be one of them. I don't think much remains to be said. I often give thought to the Jewish category of kherem kherem, which means excommunication. I do hope this novel is not going to estrange us.

Right now I'm taking heat on three fronts: i) Paternity-a fresh start at the age of 84; ii) The messy explosive mixture that James Atlas is preparing for me in the form of a biography; iii) The hue and cry about [Ravelstein] against which I must brace myself. Janis occasionally says to me that maybe we should move to Uruguay. I have a remote connection with the family of the dictator and I did get an A in my high school Spanish course . . .

2000.

To the Swedish Academy [n.d.] [Brookline]

I wish to nominate the American novelist Philip Roth for the n.o.bel Prize. His books have been so widely examined and praised that it would be superfluous for me to describe, or praise, his gifts.

To Martin Amis February 7, 2000 Brookline Dear Martin, I used to be a ready correspondent but somehow over the years I lost the habit of writing letters. Maybe the death of so many pals was at the bottom of this, a first generation and then a second and even a third dying. I suspect I've lost count. It may even be that the confidences I made to my friends are now offered to my readers. That, if true, is not a good development-but I'm not prepared to go any further in that direction. It's enough to say that I feel like talking to you and that I find myself very often turning to you for relief. It is a kid's game to have imaginary conversations, convinced somehow-as kids are-that the imaginary gets translated reliably into the minds of your friends.

But it's Ravelstein Ravelstein I'm thinking of all the while. I'd never written anything like I'm thinking of all the while. I'd never written anything like Ravelstein Ravelstein before, and the mixture of fact and fiction has gotten out of hand. There are other elements besides, because the facts are so impure. There's fact, and then there is journalistic fact with its usual accents. You can even see the journalists transforming fact into scandal and, towards the top, scandal lapsing over into myth, moving into the medieval territory reserved for plague. I was not prepared to hear a leper's bell ring at the cross-roads of affection and eccentric charm. before, and the mixture of fact and fiction has gotten out of hand. There are other elements besides, because the facts are so impure. There's fact, and then there is journalistic fact with its usual accents. You can even see the journalists transforming fact into scandal and, towards the top, scandal lapsing over into myth, moving into the medieval territory reserved for plague. I was not prepared to hear a leper's bell ring at the cross-roads of affection and eccentric charm.

It seems that many people knew the truth about Allan. If not the pure truth then the bendable, versatile kind that academic politics is familiar with. So I found myself challenged by fanatical people. I discovered very soon that Allan had enemies who were preparing to reveal that he had died of AIDS. At this point I lost my head; when the New York Times New York Times telephoned to have it out with me I fell apart-I was unable to outsmart the journalists. So here I am, the author of a tribute which has been transformed into one of those civilized disasters no one can be prepared for. telephoned to have it out with me I fell apart-I was unable to outsmart the journalists. So here I am, the author of a tribute which has been transformed into one of those civilized disasters no one can be prepared for.

As you well know, the attention of the public and the press is seldom pleasant, and with rare exceptions (the Pope, for instance) it gives no one a break. I tell people that Ravelstein asked me to write a memoir and that it would have been false and wicked to omit the sickness that killed him from the account I gave of his life. With an omniscient wisdom like his it would have been impossible not to predict what would come of this. But I was ready, so I thought, to handle all the embarra.s.sments that were bound to swarm over me. I couldn't have faced myself if I had turned aside from a character of Ravelstein's stature. I long ago understood that what we call the art of fiction was withering because-well, because modern democracies were unheroic.

But I find myself needing to explain unheroic democracy to the journalists and the public and it depresses me beyond all boundaries of former depression. I get what comfort I can get from reflecting that at my age the shop is in any case about to shut its doors. Last week I flew to see my ancient sister in Cincinnati. She's my senior by nine years, and when I heard the news of the crash of an Air Alaska jet off the Pacific coast I thought, "Why not Delta Airlines as well, into the Ohio River?" But no. I landed safely and was driven out to the luxury funny farm where my sister lives. She was glad I had come and wanted to see pictures of the new baby. What we do not discuss is the fact that there's only a single grave left in the family plot.

Janis feels that this is an oppressive letter but it's given me a lift.

To Martin Amis April 13, 2000 Brookline Dear Martin, When your ma.n.u.script arrived I was winding up Ravelstein Ravelstein and Janis had and Janis had Experience Experience all to herself. That is probably a misleading way to put it-she acts for both of us so she kept me posted while reading, and at lunch, drinks-time and dinner she described what you were up to, praised the stylistic breakthrough you had made. She is an inflammable, excitable and exacting reader. She said you had found a way to digress without appearing to, unloading a heavy freight of information without the slightest appearance of wandering. all to herself. That is probably a misleading way to put it-she acts for both of us so she kept me posted while reading, and at lunch, drinks-time and dinner she described what you were up to, praised the stylistic breakthrough you had made. She is an inflammable, excitable and exacting reader. She said you had found a way to digress without appearing to, unloading a heavy freight of information without the slightest appearance of wandering.

I was taken with your asterisk-asides. Altogether, you have come up with a way of writing entirely your own. The unit is no longer a sentence but a characteristic utterance. Can it be that the Amises have somehow developed a consistent way of putting things? If I knew your father's books better I might be able to pin down these characteristics. As it is, there is evidence of an independent expository style. From a variety of angles the book gives an account of the death of your father. Increasingly, I wonder whether these literary accomplishments are traceable to a family way of speaking. I will be interested to see whether Louis and Jacob [Amis's sons] will be tinged by this. My own parents, along with my father's sister, brought me up not in English but in a cognate language spoken by prodigies, wits and wizards. It's possible that your boys, like salamanders, will make themselves at home in the flames. Your father's conduct as well as your own point that way and that's why Experience Experience doesn't read quite like a written doc.u.ment. I am trying to account for the strong impression your father made on me, his drinking, his womanizing. And his preoccupation with English usage, his absorption, his loyalty-amounting to fanaticism-to the right way with words. I found the man very moving and of course I couldn't help wondering how I would appear to my own sons in my last days. doesn't read quite like a written doc.u.ment. I am trying to account for the strong impression your father made on me, his drinking, his womanizing. And his preoccupation with English usage, his absorption, his loyalty-amounting to fanaticism-to the right way with words. I found the man very moving and of course I couldn't help wondering how I would appear to my own sons in my last days.

There is, or was, a Russian thinker named [Vasily] Rozanov who intrigues me. He declared that we wait thousands of years to be born, and then we come in, briefly, to do our stretch (I borrow this term from American-convict lingo). After ages of nonexistence we open our eyes, we see everything for the first time, we exist exist, we come into our intoxicating, dazzling "rights." In our own generation we have glimpses of others, briefly and pa.s.sionately beginning to see. This is why the murder of your cousin Lucy hits us so hard. Her aim was to live, to perfect herself, to come into her legacy. But she was murdered and buried. I can't help thinking how very different a view of such enormities the media give us. [ . . . ]

I await your June visit, and I shall bone up on Rozanov. He is certainly worth talking about.

Love,

In 1973 Amis's twenty-one-year-old cousin Lucy Partington vanished. Twenty years later her remains were uncovered beneath the Gloucester house of serial killers Fred and Rosemary West.

To Richard Stern August 12, 2000 Brookline Dear d.i.c.k, I don't intend to read [James] Atlas. There is a parallel between his book and the towel with which the bartender cleans the bar. What strikes me uncomfortably about Atlas is that he has great appeal for my detractors. He was born to please them. Another match made in heaven.

Yours ever, To Philip Roth [n. d.] [Brookline]

Dear Philip- [David] Remnick must know that he struck it rich, this time-no Eng. Lit. Prof. would be capable of doing what you've done with my books. And I too have learned from you. I see now what I was evidently incapable of seeing unaided: that I've done what everybody else does. Everybody takes the cognitive line. Like any sociologist, we understand; like any psychologist, we a.n.a.lyze. No big deal.

What is is a big deal is that I've had a breakdown and you covered for me. You've concealed my disorder and kept me looking normal-no minor achievement. a big deal is that I've had a breakdown and you covered for me. You've concealed my disorder and kept me looking normal-no minor achievement.

Yours,

Roth's essay "Re-Reading Saul Bellow" had been commissioned by David Remnick, editor in chief of The New Yorker The New Yorker. It appeared there on October 9.

2001.

To Keith Botsford January 9, 2001 Brookline Dear Keith, A few gritty but happily minor details are on my mind this morning: I think it would be advisable to remove my name from the masthead of The Republic of Letters The Republic of Letters, starting with the next issue, and from the stationery when next you order it; also my name should disappear from the joint bank account. (On my tax return, The Republic of Letters The Republic of Letters will be listed as one of my investments, and I shall be claiming a capital loss-or whatever the accountants want it listed as.) will be listed as one of my investments, and I shall be claiming a capital loss-or whatever the accountants want it listed as.) I am sure you won't object to my fading away. On this morning of black and white, snow and tree trunks, some instinct for simplification rises up. I feel like Bismarck when he stepped aside at the request of the young Kaiser. My list of old friends grows shorter and shorter. We, though, shall still be having dinners, drinks, and discussions; and if from time to time I send you some notes, I hope you will view them as coming from a contributor. I hope you will continue to have have me as a contributor, and if you have suggestions for me in that line, I should be only too glad to have you as my editor. me as a contributor, and if you have suggestions for me in that line, I should be only too glad to have you as my editor.

With every good wish,

2002.