The Novel

by James A. Michener

  But there were moments of cruel pain, as when Devlan came naked from the bath to reveal unintentionally how much weight he had lost, and before he could cover himself with a towel it was made brutally clear that he had not only dropped to the ideal weight for a man of his height, but had continued to fall dangerously below it. If he maintained this precipitous descent, we both realized that the day would be at hand when even the slightest fever or infection would signal his death. We showed increasing tenderness toward each other, with any potentially disruptive subject like my novel avoided. We returned again and again to his basic theme, that novelists were obligated to maintain the exalted discourse that had always been maintained among the few since mankind first recorded its thoughts. ‘We’re the high priests of an increasingly pagan world, and we must keep the flame of intelligence alive. How many men in Florence comprehended what Dante was about? How many in Poland understood Copernicus? And look what the canaille did to Darwin!’

  In the last week we walked slowly about the streets and monuments of Athens, savoring each familiar scene, both aware that this must be the last time we would ever see the radiant city together, or even apart, for I could not imagine returning here without him. Occasionally visitors to the city would pause to look at us as we passed—tall red-headed American and frail Irishman with the Julius Caesar haircut touching his eyebrows—and they would speculate as to who we were, but none came even close to guessing the powerful bond that held us together.

  On what we knew would be the last night in our companionship we sat in a park where, with the aid of a rather dim streetlight, we read passages from Agamemnon. I interrupted the reading: ‘Have I ever told you what I’ve done on the wall of my classroom?’ And as I described the mural that outlined the deplorable behavior of the Atreus gang, as I called them, we irreverently laughed at the enormity of the actions that had led to such overwhelming tragedy. In the midst of our lighthearted talk, Devlan suddenly pressed his hands to his face and whispered: ‘Oh, Karl! You must believe that Peter meant nothing to me—he was just a promising boy, that’s all. We had a meaningless affair—you were away so long—and now this terrible penalty.’

  In an attempt to console him and convince him of my deep love I added: ‘You will be with me always, Michael. When I recall your puckish face, I will always be reminded of Shakespeare and Yeats, and we will forever be together.’

  In the morning Devlan rose, shaved carefully to avoid cutting himself lest he infect me accidentally, and headed for the airport. In our previous departures it had always been I who flew out first, as if Athens belonged to him, but now, with all sense of proprietorship gone, he wanted to hurry home and prepare himself for death—in the way that great elephants are known to retreat to their cave when they feel the end approaching.

  Upon my return to Mecklenberg for the fall semester of 1985 I participated in an unfortunate affair that sharply terminated my courteous relationship with Lukas Yoder. I had invited to the college’s autumn poetry fest a fine young man from the University of Chicago who had published some strong poems in various little journals and whose reputation had grown so that he seemed assured of one of the next Pulitzer prizes, especially if he could somehow get a hardcover publisher to bring out a collection of his work. This would encourage the important journals to review him as a serious poet, which they refused to do so long as he had only occasional publication in fugitive magazines. ‘We cannot be sure he’ll build a permanent reputation among the poets,’ the editors said, ‘until he gets it together.’ The last phrase meant: ‘Until he manages a hardcover publication.’

  His name was Heintz Bogulov, and he not only wrote good poetry but also displayed a raffish sense of humor, and when in the question period a woman asked what young men like him thought of the established poets like Longfellow, he used her as a springboard for savage burlesques of Longfellow’s better-known lines: ‘Tell me not in mournful slumbers’ and ‘Lives of bankers all remind us they have made their dough in crime’ and ‘When the G-men come to find us, in the clinker doing time,’ and the risqué one: ‘Let us then be up and screwing with a heart for any mate.’

  When the first waves of laughter subsided, Bogulov moved as far forward on the stage as possible, adopted an orator’s pose and recited with growing speed and mussiness of pronunciation his improvised version of the hilarious parody ‘Hiawatha’s Mittens,’ set to the tongue-twisting rhymes and rhythms of Longfellow’s poem. He broke up the audience with lines like this: ‘Made them with the outside inside, made them with the skinside outside, never with the skinside inside, never with the furside outside, always with the furside her side.’ At the conclusion of the hilarious jumble, and with his mouth awry as he tried to manage the various inside-skinsides he stopped abruptly and told the woman: ‘That’s what a modern poet thinks of your boy Longfellow.’

  From the back of the room a small gentlemen in his sixties rose and began speaking in a clear voice that masked the emotion he felt. Since it was Lukas Yoder, whose latest best-seller, The Creamery, had leaped to the top of the lists, people wanted to hear how he would react to the buffoonery: ‘We’ve had a delightful few minutes just now lampooning a poet who enjoyed a favorable reputation in the last century, and I agree with you that he is outmoded by today’s standards, for he wrote poems that could be enjoyed, recited and shared, which our modem poets apparently can no longer do.’ This insult to modern poets and their poetry caused a rumble of protest, but Yoder plunged ahead: ‘I would remind you that Longfellow also wrote one of the finest single phrases in all of poetry: “Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing.” Now, since most of us won’t know that Longfellow, I’ll admit that the next three lines fall apart, burdened as they are with his usual sentimentality:

  ‘ “Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;

  So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,

  Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and silence.”

  ‘As they say, “He should of quit when he was ahead,” but he didn’t. He never knew when to stop, always had to tack on his sentimental moral. But with his opening line he penned one that will live forever, and I doubt if there is any one of us in this room tonight who will do the same, so it does not behoove us to ridicule the silly old man. He was not always silly.’

  With that he left his place, crawled noisily over the intervening seats, took his wife by the hand, and stalked from the hall. When many of the older people in the hall applauded his gesture, I felt that as chairman I must protect our visiting poet and, red in the face, I leaped to my feet and would probably have made an ass of myself had not Bogulov moved forward on the stage, saluted Yoder’s back as the latter stormed away and said blandly: ‘Chacun à son goût.’ Those in the audience who understood French chuckled, and soon the audience was applauding the adroit manner in which the poet had defused the tense situation. I was not among those who clapped, for I was staring at the spot from which Yoder and his little wife, Emma, had vanished. This disruption of my carefully planned poetry session was the act that broke the camel’s back; from here on Yoder and I were enemies, for I saw in him every meretricious trick against which Devlan had inveighed.

  Because I sought always to be forthright about my literary judgments, I prepared for the next issue of our college’s paper, The Martin Luther, a short summary of what had transpired at the poetry session:

  Last Friday at Alumni Hall I was honored to serve as chairman of the latest in our series of poetry readings and I had the pleasure of introducing one of our nation’s finest young poets, Heintz Bogulov of the University of Chicago. Like most modern poets, he has a poor opinion of America’s revered but inconsequential poets of the last century. Quite properly, in my judgment, he dealt humorously with many of Longfellow’s pomposities and catchpenny moralizings.

  A local novelist of some reputation, and a graduate of our college, felt constrained to rebuke Bogulov and to cite as Longfellow’s claim to immortal
ity one line from the poet’s complete oeuvre:

  Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing …

  then making the extraordinary plea that this line, which does have merit, justifies considering Longfellow a real poet.

  The evening ended too abruptly for me to rebuke the novelist’s fatuous argument, but since many students may have taken his reasoning seriously, let me affirm now that not many thinking persons in this country take Henry Wadsworth Longfellow seriously. He was a poetaster, not a poet.

  Karl Streibert

  Professor of English

  My declaration of war had been issued publicly, and I intended to abide by it.

  My animosity toward Yoder had no time to fester, however, because an unexpected phone call diverted my attention to one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching, the enrollment of a gifted student worthy of special attention because of demonstrated skills. The summons came from President Rossiter, who said: ‘Meet me in the Regents Room. We have a shot at an extremely bright young man.’

  When I reached the well-appointed room reserved for the elder statesmen who ran the college and ensured its funding, I found Rossiter, an avuncular, handsomely dressed executive type in his early fifties, bubbling with excitement: ‘Jane Garland, powerhouse on our board, said she wanted to see you personally.’

  This surprised me, for although I was aware that Mrs. Garland, the wealthy widow of a former chief executive of a steel company, retained an interest in the college and a mansion some miles to the west, I had no reason to suspect that she had ever heard of me. ‘She’s tremendously important to us, Streibert. You must accommodate her if it’s humanly possible. She controls a considerable fortune, and while she’s been generous with her aid in the past, the bulk of her wealth is still unassigned. What’s best, she’s a delightful person to be with—extremely sharp.’

  Before I could respond, the door pushed open with a purposeful snap and a stately woman in her late sixties entered briskly, her blue-silver hair neatly coiffed, her trim semibusiness suit impeccable. Her smile was warm and generous, not a polite smirk, and, with a nod to the president, she moved directly to me, extended her hand and said: ‘I’m Jane Garland, and welcome to the room I call my second home. Could you promote something for us to drink, Norman? Let’s not have this a formal affair.’

  I had been so attentive to this imposing woman that I was not aware that something was brushing my leg, but when I looked down I saw a tan-colored Labrador, whose big eyes were staring into mine. ‘That’s Xerxes,’ Mrs. Garland was saying. ‘Gentle as a butterfly, and this is the reason for our visit, my grandson Timothy. It’s his dog and I warned against bringing him.’

  As soon as I looked at the boy I remembered him as the mesmerizing lad who had commanded the attention of the poets from Boston and the same electricity now emanated from him. I thought: How wonderful to see him again, and this time to be able to speak with him: ‘I remember you. You’re the fellow who preferred Eliot to Frost.’ He obviously had no recollection of me, but he did nod politely. A strand of black hair had dropped across his forehead and his piercing blue eyes glinted as he looked about the room, trying to judge it and its occupants. He was neither excessively shy nor ill at ease and my first reaction was: ‘This one is keen,’ an assessment that would be verified as the meeting progressed. When cola drinks were served, Mrs. Garland said: ‘Let’s find comfortable seats,’ and as young Tull slid into his, with Xerxes at his side, she added: ‘President Rossiter, you may leave us alone. The professor and I want to test each other,’ and her bright smile made it easy for Rossiter to withdraw.

  As soon as he was gone, she began to speak in crisp, almost hurried sentences, for she had many ideas she wished to explore before deciding whether to place her grandson’s future in my hands, but in fairness she wanted me to understand who the Garlands were: ‘My husband, Larrimore, was chief executive officer of the largest steel company in the area. He was also chairman of this board of regents and a major supporter of the college football team. That portrait better than anything I can say illustrates the kind of man he was.’

  The painting she referred to stood out boldly from other formal likenesses of self-satisfied businessmen in their sixties who so resembled one another that they could have been brothers, which in a sense they had been. Larrimore Garland had elected to have himself portrayed in a steel hat, not posing alone, but in the company of three fellow workmen. It was, said Mrs. Garland, ‘the picture of a hands-on guy, which he was.’ As she smiled at the portrait she added: ‘When he died I was invited to take his place as a regent, but I declined. Membership, yes. Chairmanship, no.’ She did not reveal that to honor her husband she had given Mecklenberg four million dollars, which had not been missed from the fortune Larrimore had built up through prudent management of his inheritance and salary.

  At one point she asked her grandson to leave us for a while, whereupon he nodded politely, bowed to me, called: ‘Here, Xerxes!’ and withdrew. ‘What a polite young man,’ I said, and she laughed: ‘You should have seen him two years ago. Candidate for reform school.’

  In a burst of the amazing frankness for which she was noted, Mrs. Garland explained: ‘My only child, Clara, was a fearful disappointment, bless her rebellious soul. Failed to graduate from my old school, Vassar, ran away to marry a really worthless fellow from the mill, Thomas Tull, who was scorned even by his own mother. My husband and I knew from the start that this sad marriage was doomed, but even so we were stricken when it ended in a blinding crash on the Rhenish Road just south of where I live. Both drivers drunk, all six occupants killed.’

  ‘And you assumed charge of Timothy?’

  Not satisfactorily, but I did. Very bright boy, but headstrong like his mother. Had two difficult years in the public high school at Reading, then by the grace of God he transferred to The Hill, a school in Pottstown, just down the road. You must know its reputation, one of the best. Tough discipline, fine teaching, a good mix for a lad like Timothy.’ At this point she put her fingers to her lips and gave a loud whistle, whereupon both the boy and Xerxes returned.

  ‘I was telling Professor Streibert of your good years at The Hill, that’s how they like it to be called.’ I noticed that Timothy did not betray the unease that boys his age showed when elders talked about them. Benignly, Mrs. Garland said: ‘In his new school Timothy snapped to attention and we all learned—Timothy, his masters and I—that he had unusual ability, especially in the use of words. He was quickly moved into a class reserved for those who had already passed their College Boards and were headed for better colleges like the Big Three, the Little Three or smaller places with respectable reputations like Haverford and Trinity of Hartford.’

  ‘Did he do well?’

  ‘Timothy, show Professor Streibert the term papers you brought,’ and when I saw them my eyes popped: ‘Narrative Devices in Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum’ and ‘Chushingura, Prototype of the Modern Japanese Corporation.’

  ‘How did you think up such topics?’

  ‘I read a lot, I listen. An article in Fortune gave me a hint about the Japanese thing, and that started me digging.’

  ‘But the German novel?’

  ‘Magazines said it was first-rate, Time and Newsweek both.’

  Tapping the two papers, neatly typed, I told Mrs. Garland: ‘If these are any good, they’d be exceptional for a college senior.’

  ‘They’re very good. I’ve read them.’ Timothy said nothing. She then revealed her reason for having invited me to meet with her: ‘Come autumn, Timothy will be nearly seventeen. His exam grades qualify him for college—’

  ‘His emotional, social maturity?’

  ‘Well, there were those potentially ugly incidents at Reading High, weren’t there, Timothy?’

  He shrugged: ‘No significance.’

  ‘But that’s what a strong school like The Hill is noted for. Knock some sense into fractious boys—’

  ‘I was never fractious, just inqui
sitive,’ he said, and I thought: Never have I had an interview like this. Either they’re both nuts or geniuses. Mrs. Garland, on her part, kept barging ahead with revelations that would have appalled the average teenager, boy or girl: ‘The head of the English department, a man with a sharp brain, told me: “I’d not be happy having him plunge into a huge place like the University of Chicago, living by himself in some off-campus rooming house, but since you’re on the board at Mecklenberg, and it’s only a few miles distant, I’d risk it. Your grandson is ready for college.”

  ‘ “I’m too involved with Mecklenberg,” I told him, and asked if he considered it a good college.

  ‘ “It’s no Harvard, nor even an Amherst,” he said, “but it’s quite respectable. And they do have a strong teacher of creative writing. Some of our faculty heard his lectures—good man.”

  ‘ “Your specific recommendation, please?” I said and he replied: “I’d say go for it.” ’

  Mrs. Garland said: ‘So my question to you, Professor Streibert, is: “Will you accept him as a student in your advanced class?” ’

  I had to clench my fists to keep from shouting ‘Will I!’ More sedately I said: ‘I’d be honored to have a freshman who wrote papers like these.’

  When young Tull arrived on campus in the fall of 1985, I decided it would be better for him if I did not take him directly into my advanced writing class but allowed him to fit normally into the college routine. I did keep a watchful eye and was surprised to see that he became almost indistinguishable from the norm: slightly taller than average, clothes a bit more expensive, hair much longer in back than had been allowed at The Hill but not so long as some, and a quiet demeanor that seemed to proclaim: I may not have been a football captain in high school, but I was sixth man on a good tennis team.