With best wishes, as always,
James Laughlin
« • »
Robert Hillyer: (1895–1961), American poet, critic, and academic. After Ezra Pound was awarded the Bollingen Prize for the best volume of poetry by an American in 1949 for The Pisan Cantos (ND 1948), Hillyer wrote two highly critical articles on Pound (and T. S. Eliot) for The Saturday Review of Literature. The ensuing literary donnybrook ultimately led Congress to remove the awarding of the Bollingen from the Library of Congress; the Bollingen Foundation continued the Prize as administered by Yale University.
Tom Merton: Thomas Merton (1915–1968). Trappist monk and most widely known American religious writer of the fifties and sixties, Merton was also a poet whose work was introduced to JL by Mark van Doren who had been Merton’s professor at Columbia. ND published Merton’s poetry in its “Poet of the Month/Year” series in 1944—the same year that ND published TW. JL delighted in visiting Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky and considered him one of his best friends and confidants. ND published Merton’s poetry and many other works not directly related to Catholic doctrine. JL was named one of the original trustees of the Thomas Merton Legacy Trust, which was created as a “fail-safe” before Merton left for his trip to Asia in 1968; after his death, the trust oversaw, and continues to oversee, publication of any Merton papers and letters not published in his lifetime.
The Seven Storey Mountain: Thomas Merton’s spiritual autobiography, published in 1948, became that year’s nonfiction best seller (over 600,000 hardcover sales). While JL had thought he had first refusal on the manuscript, Merton had sent the manuscript to his agent, Naomi Burton, apparently without mentioning his commitment to JL; she posted it to Robert Giroux then at Harcourt, Brace, who immediately signed it up. The book is credited with inspiring a large number of monastic and priestly vocations in the late forties and early fifties.
Don Ameche: (1908–1993), American film actor.
the Order: The Abbey of Gethsemani is a monastery in the Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance.
the Abbot: Dom James Fox (1896–1987), Abbot of the Abbey of Gethsemani from 1948 to 1968. He was frequently at odds with his most celebrated monk, Thomas Merton, and was reluctant to allow any project that would give Merton any higher visibility than his books already brought him.
Paul’s novel: At TW’s recommendation, JL published Bowles’s first novel, The Sheltering Sky, in 1949.
John Hawkes: (1925–1998), American novelist. His first book with New Directions was The Cannibal (1949). ND published fourteen more titles by Hawkes.
Djuna Barnes: (1892–1982), American writer and artist whose most famous novel, Nightwood, was reissued by ND in 1946 and remains in print.
70. TLS—1
6/21/49 [Rome]
DEAR JAY:
[ . . . ]
Maria Britneva is here and sends you her love. Arthur Miller is also in town and Kazan said to be approaching. Oliver Evans lands in Naples today. He and I are taking to the lakes and hills in the Buick for a couple of weeks, but my address remains American Express in Rome.
Ever,
Tenn
« • »
Arthur Miller: (1915–2006). TW and Miller shared mutual respect and a cordial professional friendship as fellow American playwrights, though they did not socialize with one another.
Kazan: Elia Kazan, born Elias Kazantzoglou (1909–2003), Turkish-born, Greek-American stage director, producer, film director, and author. A member of the original Group Theatre and a founder of the Actors Studio, Kazan was the most influential American stage director of the twentieth century. His professional relationship and friendship with TW was long and loyal: Kazan directed the premieres of A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Sweet Bird of Youth and the films A Streetcar Named Desire and Baby Doll.
71. TL—2
June 23, 1949 [New York]
DEAR TENNESSEE:
Enclosed please find a set of proofs of your introduction to Carson’s Reflections in a Golden Eye.
I hope you will approve of the changes which Audrey and I have made in the matter of the affair of Truman and also the reference to Gypsy Rose Lee, which she might not have liked.
The little scrawl in pencil at the left of the second page is Carson’s. She would like very much to point out that her age was different than you have noted it down.
[ . . . ]
We recently acquired a very interesting electric typewriting machine to speed up our office procedures. With this machine, it is possible to make 8 or 10 copies at a time, and so I am having that number made of your story “The Kingdom of Earth.” I will send six of them along to you in due course, and keep the two others filed away here in safe and confidential places.
Audrey said that there was a possibility that you might be coming back here soon to go out to Hollywood to work on the script of Menagerie. I can’t imagine anything more gruesome for you, but I suppose you really ought to do it. She says that they are making a genuine effort to keep the thing artistic, and if they really mean to, I suppose you ought to help them out.
I’m just setting out for Aspen, Colorado, for two weeks to take part in the Goethe Festival out there, but I’ll be back in New York after that, and if you do come through, I hope you will let me know ahead so that we can have a good get-together. If you felt like coming up to the country for a few days, Margaret and I would certainly love to have you. There isn’t much excitement up there, but the swimming isn’t bad in the local lake. We would guard you carefully from the local cocktail set, unless you would find it amusing to have a look at them and see how dreadful they are.
Have you had a chance to look at the ending of the little play about Lawrence [I Rise in Flame]? Audrey and I are both keen to get ahead with the production of that, but she agrees with me that you ought to look at the ending and see if it is just the way you want it to go through.
Please also keep in mind that you are going to look about for copies of old poems that I might want to see with a view to making up that book of your poetry. I hope your work is going along well. I’m keen to have a look at that short novel [Roman Spring], or long story, or whatever it is.
With best wishes,
James Laughlin
« • »
72. TL—1
August 1, 1949 [New York]
DEAR TENNESSEE:
[ . . . ]
I am back in the East now after a wonderful month out at Aspen, Colorado, where I was working on the Goethe Festival. The Goethe gathering turned out very well. The musical program wasn’t exceptional, but many of the lectures were quite wonderful. They had brought the great Goethe scholars from all over the world, and some of those old boys really know their stuff. Stephen Spender was there for a while, and we had a good time together. He gave a fine talk, comparing Hamlet with Faust, and the way Shakespeare and Goethe handled their characters. I’ll remind you to take a look at his paper when it is published, because I think you would be interested in the points he made. Surprisingly enough, about the best talk, at least the most dramatic and moving one, was given by Thornton Wilder. Did you ever run into him? He is a strange and curious and fascinating character. Something of an old maid and rather affected in that sense, but a real humanist when you get beneath it. I got quite fond of him out there in Aspen. One evening he recited his new play [The Emporium] to us aloud, and it is an absolute howl. As he himself frankly admits, it is all made up out of Kafka, the setting being in Philadelphia, where a giant department store corresponds to Kafka’s Castle. He borrows very liberally, but at the same time, the detail of the characters is his own, and very funny. He also seems to enjoy writing things with his tongue in his cheek. Everything that he does is very artificed, but when it is good, I think it has wit and style of a kind. Did you read his book about Julius Caesar [The Ides of March, 1948]? If you didn’t, I think it would amuse you living there in Rome.
Well, enough for now. I have an enormous stack of work piled up after the long visit in Colorado. I hope your work is going well and let me know if I can do anything for you over here at any time.
Best wishes, as always,
James Laughlin
« • »
Stephen Spender: (1909–1995), English poet and novelist.
Thornton Wilder: (1897–1975), American novelist and playwright who won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and drama.
73. TLS—2
8/17/49 [Rome]
DEAR JAY:
Whatever decision you and Carson reach about the two prefaces [for Reflections in a Golden Eye] is O.K. with me. My feeling was, when I read over the first version, that I appeared in that version to be talking too much about myself. If you revert to that original version I hope that you will preserve the cuts that I have made in it, particularly the long portion about “imitators.” I believe that I scratched out (in the returned proofs) all but about two sentences of that material which was provoked mainly by a personal antagonism for Truman which I think should not be indulged in this place. I also wish you would compare the two versions very carefully, again, and perhaps something from the second, which I still believe had a great deal more dignity in keeping with the novel, could be appended or worked into the other.
I received yesterday a long letter from Carson, most depressing. “Health has failed steadily—can’t walk more than half a block—neuritis has set in—damaged nerves constantly spastic—dreadful headache—nausea, prostration—a gland went wrong in the neck—prolonged suffering—a sort of convulsion at dawn . . .” It sounds almost fantastic! Surely she has not been given any really intelligent diagnosis or therapy. I think she should be hospitalized for several months and exhaustively examined from every angle, physiological, emotional, Etc. Of course there needs to be a special branch of medicine for the understanding and treatment of such hypersensitive artists, but since they practically never have any money, they are simply condemned. I dread the play production that she is now facing as her emotional involvement is certain to be great. Clurman is a fine director for it, but when I last saw the script it was far from being in a state to produce.
I am sailing out of Naples on the twentieth, the crossing takes ten days, and must go directly to Hollywood when I land. My work on the movie script is practically complete but they are not yet satisfied with the ending and I think I shall have a fight with them about that. They say they don’t want a fairy-tale ending but there is evidence of double-talk. At least I should learn something more about the technique of film-making which I can use creatively on some other assignment perhaps over here. I am on excellent terms with Rossellini and De Sica and Visconti and would enjoy working with any one of them. Last week had supper with Ingrid Bergman and Rossellini. Their “Fuck you” attitude toward the outraged women’s clubs and sob-columnists is very beautiful and should have salutary effect on discrediting these infantile moralists that make it so hard for anyone to do honest work and live honestly in the States. If Bergman has the moral courage she appears to have, it will be a triumph.
Several weeks ago I sent you two long poems, “The Soft City” and “Counsel,” which you haven’t mentioned receiving. If you hate them, for God’s sake Jay, don’t hesitate to say so! I depend so much on your critical opinion as there are times when my own seems to fail me. I lose objectivity about my work, as everyone does at times, but you know that I am not morbidly sensitive to adverse opinion, but on the contrary, I am grateful for it. I showed Kazan and his wife a long synopsis of the play I had been working on. They both wrote me from London of their disappointment in it quite frankly and while I felt that the synopsis had not conveyed a true idea of the play as it existed in my conception, their criticism will be helpful when I go back to work on it, if I do. Whatever I do badly (even if it is everything!) I want to know, I want to be told! Honesty about failure is the only help for it.
I am enclosing two versions, first and second drafts of another poem. I don’t know which is better or worse. Also, the other ending to the Lawrence play [I Rise in Flame]. I wonder if it would not be better to change Brett’s name in the play to something like Brady, since the incident is fictitious and she might object. I don’t believe Frieda would.
It is dreadful to leave here, but I have thrown a coin in the Fountain of Trevi.
Ever,
10
« • »
Clurman: Harold Clurman (1901–1980). American stage director and founding member of the Group Theatre, Clurman directed McCullers’s stage adaptation of her novel, The Member of the Wedding (ND 1951), and the original production of TW’s Orpheus Descending on Broadway in 1957.
De Sica: Vittorio De Sica (1901–1974), Italian director and actor.
Ingrid Bergman: (1915–1982). In 1949, while working on the film Stromboli for the Italian director Roberto Rossellini, Bergman and Rossellini fell in love and she became pregnant. Though she later divorced her husband and married Rossellini, American public opinion was slow to forgive the Swedish-born actress who had played Saint Joan as well as Ilsa in Casablanca. She and Rossellini remained in Italy for several years until the “scandal” subsided. TW’s attitude is evident.
Kazan and his wife: Molly Day Thacher Kazan (1905–1963) happened to be the reader at the Group Theatre who singled out TW’s group of one-acts, “American Blues,” for an honorable mention in 1939, which led him to New York and to his longtime agent, Audrey Wood.
74. ALS—3
December 9, 1949 [Key West]
DEAR JAY,
Theseus came today and it is resting beside my bed, the proper place for any good work of art. We have a snow white rooster next door to us who flaps his wings and crows every half hour or so. I always wake up and continue my reading.
Life here is as dull as paradise must be. Consequently I do more work. I have, at long last, finished a first complete draft of a new play called The Starry Blue Robe of Our Lady [which became The Rose Tattoo]. It may be weeks before I dare to read it. Am also working on another novella. Audrey wrote me that you were interested in publishing Moon of Pause [which became Roman Spring]. That was not my impression. I did a little more work on it. I would really like to publish it, first in a magazine such as Harper’s Bazaar. I think it is a good study of the malignant power-drive but how effective it is otherwise I still don’t know; Carson sent me an enthusiastic wire about it. Evidently Bigelow had showed it to her, as he is retyping it.
I may come to the Philadelphia opening of Carson’s play Xmas week, in which case I’d spend a few days in N.Y. Isherwood’s friend, Bill Caskey, is having dinner with us one night.
À bientot. 10.
« • »
Theseus: An essay on the Theseus myth by André Gide was published by ND in 1949 (in a translation from the French by John Russell) in a limited edition of two hundred copies, hand printed by master printer Giovanni Mardersteig at the Officina Bodoni in Verona. JL loved fine printing and Mardersteig was a favorite printer for special projects.
Carson’s play: The Member of the Wedding (ND 1951) opened on Broadway January 5, 1950. During their time spent together on Nantucket in the summer of 1948, TW greatly helped McCullers to shape the play and, though he took no credit, McCullers was always keen to thank him for his help.
Bill Caskey: William Caskey was a photographer with whom Isherwood lived and collaborated.
75. TL—2
December 16, 1949 [Cambridge, Massachusetts]
DEAR TENNESSEE,
Thanks ever so much for your good letter of December 9th, which reached me up in Cambridge, where I am busy with my duties as a member of the Visiting Committee for the English Department. It is very funny to go around from class to class and observe the students and the funny old professors objectively. Re-visiting these scenes of a good many follies of youth certainly gives me a feeling of old age. But there is no question but life becomes less troublesome as you get older. The senses see
m to get dulled so that you no longer get into the emotional agonies that certain situations produced when you were eighteen years old. On the other hand, a lot of the excitement is gone too.
I’m glad to hear that Key West is turning out to be a success and that you’re getting a lot of work done. Audrey told me you were doing some revision on the novella [Roman Spring], and I think that is fine. I do definitely want to publish it when you get it in such shape that it satisfies your own feeling about it. I just didn’t want to push you into publishing it until you yourself are ready. I was trying to lean over backward lest I should have to accuse myself of a commercial motivation. Obviously, the thing will sell pretty well, and that sets up a kind of pressure in a publisher which has to be guarded against by a strict examination of conscience. When you get it in a shape that satisfies you, let’s go ahead with it, with the idea that it will first appear in one of the magazines, and then later on be done as a book, perhaps with a few short stories added to it to fill out the book. Audrey also said something about your starting of another one, which might pair up with it. But we can work out the details of that later on.
That’s fine that you have blocked out the new play [The Rose Tattoo]. Is there any chance of getting a look at it? I am always sort of fascinated to know what you are going to do next.
[ . . . ]
With best wishes as always, James Laughlin
« • »
76. TL—2
December 22, 1949 [New York]
The Luck of Friendship Page 15