The Digested Twenty-first Century
Page 18
Dear Mrs Woolf,
Thank you for sending me your new short story. I read it with great interest, but feel it is, perhaps, too frivolous for inclusion in The Monthly Criterion. Have you thought about sending it to Grazia? Yours, etc.
Dear Messrs Methuen,
I note with alarm that the paper for the new setting of The Sacred Wood is below the standard I expect. Please correct soonest. Yours, etc.
Dear Master,
I trust that nothing will interfere with my stay at New College on the 9th proxima and that I will be accorded the same suite of rooms as previously. Does five guineas sound reasonable for my expenses? Yours, etc.
My dearest Ottoline,
I’m so grateful that Valerie managed to find room for a few of my maddest letters. La – la – la. Otherwise no one would have any idea how much of a saint Tom was to put up with me for so long before having me committed to an asylum. Such a wonderful Christian man! Anyone else might have been tempted to have an affair by my madness. The cat stood on the mat. Much love, Vivienne.
My darling Emily,
(Regrettably, all the correspondence between TS Eliot and Emily Hale has been embargoed until 2020, so readers will just have to take the chaste nature of their relationship on trust – Eds. PS. I’ve always hated that bitch – Valerie)
Dear Cummings,
Thank you for sending me your new ditty. Unfortunately it is not quite suitable for The Monthly Criterion. Have you thought about taking remedial lessons in grammar and punctuation? Yours, etc.
Dear Leonard,
It was a rare honour to meet someone, such as yourself, with more money than sense. As you know, The Monthly Criterion is struggling financially and with your help we could re-establish the magazine on a quarterly footing. Thank you also for your offer to publish an edition of my poems in Latin. Once I have fulfilled my contractual obligations to Faber, of which I am now a director, I shall be happy to accept. In the meantime, I submit my invoice for 300 guineas. Yours, etc.
Dear Faber,
I note that 12 paper-clips are missing from the office inventory and that my papers had not been placed perpendicular to the inkwell on my desk. This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. Yours, etc.
Dear Aldington,
Thank you for sending me your latest verses. If they can be called that. I confess that I found them disappointing in the extreme – an opinion that I must make clear has nothing to do with your outspoken assertions that Vivienne is not really that mad. Have you tried The People’s Friend? Yours, etc.
Dear Prince de Rohan,
Thank you for your appreciation of the German translation of my essay on Machiavelli. So often, one feels one is putting pearls before swine. Vivienne is doing as well as can be expected and I get enormous comfort from my faith. Yours, etc.
Dear Auden,
I am sorry I kept you waiting in the Faber ante-chamber for several hours. I had a very important meeting with my secretary. Do call the office to arrange another appointment some time next year. Yours, etc.
Dear Faber,
The paper-clips are still missing. Yours, etc.
Dear Spender,
Thank you for your invitation to speak at the Oxford Poetry Society. Regrettably, I must decline as I am exhausted. Having read a few lines of your latest work, dare I suggest that poetry is not your forte? I submit my invoice for 15 guineas for the expenses that would have accrued, had I accepted. Yours, etc.
Digested read, digested: A publisher’s thank you for being kept afloat by Cats.
Distant Intimacy
by Frederic Raphael and Joseph Epstein (2013)
Dear Freddie, Twenty-five years or so ago, I proposed to my friend John Gross who was then editing the TLS that he might care to engage in a self-regarding, grumpy-old-man correspondence with America’s greatest essayist. To my surprise he turned me down, but having just watched yet another repeat of The Glittering Prizes on PBS, I wondered if you might be a man of sufficient neglect and vanity to say yes instead. Best, Joe
Dear Joe, I confess I had no idea who you were when your letter first arrived, but having looked you up, I discover that though you are a lesser Jew than me – la chose juive c’est aussi importante que la chose génitale (as Charcot would say – there might be some $$$$ in my extravagantly parenthesised bons mots reaching a wider audience). Tout à toi, Freddie
Dear Freddie, I am delighted you have entered so fully into the spirit of my grand projet. I agree that Jewishness is the sine qua non of human existence, and I regret deeply that my Jewishness is not as realised as your own. Yet still I find I am a remarkable Jew. Talking of which, do you loathe Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag as much as me? Best, Joe
Dear Joe, I will only return to the subject of Jewishness and the evil of antisemitism in every other epistle. How much we have in common! I cannot stand GV. A homosexualist – homosexu-A-list – of limited talent. As for La Sontag. She had the pleasure of meeting me once. The pleasure was all hers. Tout à toi, Freddie
Dear Freddie, The New York Review of Books has offered me only $20,000 for 3,000 of my best words on the Essays of Montaigne, and Columbia University is refusing to fly me business class to deliver a lecture on hubris. I fear for the recognition of my genius. Best, Joe
Dear Joe, It was always thus, thus it always was. When I worked in Hollywood with fools such as Kubrick, I found it best just to take what was on offer while retaining un détachement supercilieux. Have you seen the pitiful new poem has Harold Pinter for the LRB? Tout Londres rit! As for the new offerings from Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes, these are books you don’t want in your wood-panelled library. I once felt the same about the pathetic criticism of Clive James, but then he was nice about my daughter. Amitiés, Freddie
Dear Freddie, Did you ever meet Vladimir Nabokov? A more overrated pedlar of leaden phrases it is hard to conceive. It is all very well to have one’s daughter praised by an Australian, but thank God she did not miscegenate with him. I have another 300 of my 500-word essay on the impact of the Astronomica of Marcus Manilius on Roger Federer still to write. I should be finished by next week, though it’s hardly worth the $15,000 I am being paid. Best, Joe
Dear Joe, I have just read your piece for the journal with a circulation of two. Quite the best-written and most incisive obiter dicta I have read since I went through the page proofs of my latest novel. Not that it will sell, because these days there is only room for the middle-brow ennui of Hollinghurst and Byatt. Alan Bennett has a talent but it is a very limited one. Tout à toi, Freddie
Dear Freddie, We come to the end of our little experiment. I have enjoyed it beyond words and believe we have left a lasting monument to those writers who would dare to trace our footsteps. Best, Joe
Dear Joe, While I miss la gloire, comme on dit, of not having been tested in physical combat, I take pleasure that those of our persuasion – if indeed we are persuaded! – will look sympathetically (simper-thetically) on our efforts. If only Michael Frayn would Re-Frayn. !E basta¡ What is our legacy? Un palimpseste de bons mots? Or the ramblings of two solipsists who have trashed what little remained of their reputations? Figure-toi. Either way, c’était une joie complète.
Digested read, digested: La Vieillesse Dorée.
Here and Now: Letters
by Paul Auster and JM Coetzee (2013)
Dear Paul, I have been thinking about how so many novelists have been cashing in by writing letters to one another which are then later published in book form. I wondered whether you might agree to be my correspondent for such a venture. We could start by discussing the nature of friendship as I note that Aristotle had something to say on the subject.
Dear John, I can’t say I have hitherto given the semiotics of friendship much thought, though for the purposes of publication I am prepared to do so now. My feeling is this: a friendship should always be of a non-sexual nature.
Dear Paul, A response to your last letter. I couldn’t agree more that our friendship should rema
in non-sexual. Much looking forward to seeing you in Estoril.
Dear Paul, I haven’t heard from you for a while. Did you receive my last letter?
Dear John, Many apologies for my failure to reply. As you know, I refuse to engage with modern technology and Siri inadvertantly unplugged the fax machine for several weeks so I have only just received it. I feel we have exhausted the subject of friendship. Perhaps we could turn our attention instead to the banking crisis which seems to have consumed the attention of everyone in New York.
Dear Paul, It seems to me that if only financiers could grasp a few simple Platonic and Borgesian truths then there would be no panic. The truth is that nothing has changed but the numbers. So why don’t they merely susbstitute some more pleasing numbers for the ones that have caused such alarm? My publishers are insisting I go to Tuscany. Perhaps we can meet in the same palazzo as last time?
Dear John, Your prescription for the economy seems eminently sensible to me. Let me tell you a story. I once met Charlton Heston on three separate occasions in as many weeks. What does that say of the signifier and the signified? My Italian publisher is insisting I, too, fly business class to Tuscany so Siri and I are much looking forward to seeing you again. In the meantime, I am watching baseball on the television.
Dear Paul, As it happens I have been watching a great deal of cricket on the television. Perhaps our intercourse should extend to why two such brilliant minds should be so fascinated by sport. It is my contention that sport satisfies a very primitive need for heroes.
Dear John, I truly believe you may be on to something with your insight about sporting heroism. Did I ever tell you about the time I once nearly met Willie Mays? I’m also finding the situation in Israel immensely complex, but we can talk about that when we meet in Canada where I am to read from my new novel.
Dear Paul, Congratulations on your new novel. It is, as ever, a masterpiece. I am looking forward to seeing you in Canada. For my session, I have insisted that members of the public should not be allowed to ask questions as they rarely have anything worthwhile to add. In the meantime, I have been asked to write something on Beckett.
Dear John, I too have been asked to write about Beckett. The reviews of my novel have been generally favourable, though I am increasingly irritated by those who insist on linking my own identity to that of my characters. How can they so fail to appreciate the imagination of the artist?
Dear Paul, The paucity of the critic in the modern age is lamentable. I am also tired of my work being subjected to that conflationary scrutiny. It is not as if either you or I have ever written books in which the characters have been named after ourselves or are in any way autobiographical. Ah well, such is the lot of genius, I suppose. I’m also having tremendous difficulty sleeping. On a lighter note, has your new typewriter arrived?
Dear John, I am disturbed to hear about your insomnia. Siri suggests that continuing our correspondance may improve matters greatly.
Digested read, digested: Hither and Thither.
Building: Letters 1960–1975
by Isaiah Berlin (2013)
Dear Important Person,
Thank you for your illuminating monograph on Tolstoy which perfectly reflects my own anti-existentialist interpretation of his character; one that I iterated some years ago, I recall. I wish I could say more, but I have a busy few decades of intense social-climbing ahead, starting with an irksome but necessary trip to America to have dinner with the new president. It will mean I have to miss Joan Sutherland’s magnificent Lucia at Covent Garden, but I will be back for Callas.
You ask me for my thoughts on the Cuban question. I regret they are at present unformed, as I have spent the past month wrestling with the seating plan for the All Souls Dinner. Freddie will not be happy unless he is at high table. I know I ought to be able to find a way of making this happen, but sometimes the Kantian ‘ought implies can’ is fallible. I have also not had time to commit my apercus on the construction of the Berlin Wall. It is, of course, a great honour to have such a landmark named in recognition of one’s achievements, but I am not sure I have done quite enough yet to be worthy of such a legacy.
What a terrible business the president’s assassination has been! It quite knocked me off my stride for the lecture series I was giving at Harvard and, combined with the ongoing furore about admitting graduates to All Souls, has left me feeling quite out of sorts. My sciatica is unbearable. For what it’s worth, I think Sparrow’s position as warden will be untenable unless the college is seen to move with the times as the Franks Report suggests. But I dare say no one will heed my opinion. So be it. Thank God I have five months’ holiday in Portofino and Jerusalem with Aline coming up.
It was with a deep sense of shock I found myself implicated in underhand dealings to ensure Hannah Arendt’s book on Eichmann was reviewed badly in the TLS. Although it is my habit to retain a carbon duplicate of every letter I send, it has never occurred to me that the correspondence of such a minor luminary as myself would ever be placed on record; and thus my passing remarks, unfortunately committed to paper, suggesting Arendt was a minor figure with an inferior intellect who deserved to be ridiculed in the TLS, were never intended to be seen as something to be actioned. I also find it extraordinary that evidence has come to light that I voted against the admission of graduates to All Souls. Needless to say, I contest this with the utmost vigour, but not so much that I am prepared to have the matter aired in public.
I am honoured to have been asked to contribute to AJP Taylor’s festschrift. I consider him to have been one of this country’s foremost historians, despite his hopelessly misguided Marxist deterministic analysis of the origins of the second world war, which I have exposed on more than one occasion. Unfortunately, I am, like Rousseau, in a state of chaos having one lecture and two books to write over the next 30 years and am therefore unable to commit to the project. However, I would like to offer £10 for someone else to write it instead.
The Arab-Israeli war is causing me some distress, not least because I have been so preoccupied with deciding which architect should build Wolfson College, that I have not been able to give it my full attention. Here at Oxford, the hippies and the beatniks have been demonstrating against the Vietnam war. There was a time when I might have had some sympathy, but now I have ingratiated myself as an establishment lackey I am inclined to let bygones be bygones.
I cannot end without voicing one minor irritation. Having invited 12 of my closest intimes to the Royal Box at Covent Garden, it was extremely embarrassing to find we were moved to less prestigious seating at short notice by the Prince of Wales. Please can you ask him to ensure this does not happen again? Yours ever, Isaiah.
Digested read, digested: Climbing.
* Anything can happen at backgammon.
* Joseph Losey, the celebrated auteur.
* Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the celebrated auteur.
† This is an exaggeration. Dirk never actually fought the Japanese in the war.
‡ Richard Attenborough, the celebrated auteur.
SELF-HELP
The Privilege of Youth
by Dave Pelzer (2004)
My heart was racing. I hadn’t slept in days. I didn’t even know what city I was in. I had never felt so lonely. But then it’s tough when you’re on a two-month lecture tour. The phone rang in my hotel room.
‘Is that the world’s most abused man?’ asked the voice.
My blood ran cold and I answered in the affirmative. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that Dan Brazell has died.’
Who was Dan Brazell? He was the man who had once fixed my bike, but I had yet to mention in print. Those three years I had never written about because they seemed too boring, suddenly assumed an unbearable poignancy. I could feel another book welling up inside me.
Everyone picked on me in school because I was in foster care. They could sense the abuse I had suffered and bullied me for it. But within days of my foster parents, the Welshes, moving to Duinsmoore Way, it felt
as if a cloud was lifting from my tormented inner self. Here I met Dave Howard and Paul Brazell, the first two boys of my own age not to judge me for my lack of self-esteem.
After a few weeks I decided I could confide in them.
‘You have to know,’ I whispered, ‘that I am the world’s most abused person. My mother called me ‘It’, locked me in the cellar for days on end, set me on fire, made me eat ammonia, bombarded me with sub-atomic particles, ran me over with a steam roller and fed me to a great white shark.’
‘Actually, we’d read it all before in your other books,’ they yawned, ‘and we’re bored stiff with hearing about it.’
This was the acceptance I had always craved.
Paul, Dave and I did a lot of crazy things in those years. Occasionally we would break the speed limit and once I narrowly missed hitting someone when I lost control. ‘Wow,’ said Paul, ‘that was close.’ ‘Cool,’ said Dave. I had done something right in someone else’s eyes.
I could feel my confidence rising and I once plucked up the courage to ask a girl out on a date. To my surprise I could sense she found me not unattractive and I bent forward to kiss her. Her mother rushed out and ordered me to leave. ‘Is it because I is abused?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s because you’re so boring.’
Dave and Paul stayed on at school, but I felt the need to get a job. As a victim of abuse I still needed to prove myself. One day Paul moaned about his dad. I snapped. ‘Your dad is great; he once fixed my bike. My dad never told me the three words I longed to hear: “You are famous.”’
The three of us went our separate ways. I became a war hero before going on to critical acclaim as a professional victim. They amounted to nothing much.
At Dan’s funeral, Paul asked me whether closure could ever be achieved. I checked my bank statement. ‘Not for the time being.’
Digested read, digested: The world’s most abused man sinks to new lows of literary degradation.