Letters

by Saul Bellow

  Best wishes,

  To John Berryman

  [Postmarked Tivoli, N.Y., 23 November 1960]

  Dear John,

  Wouldn’t you like to sing an aria or two in the next Savage? That department is the weakest; it needs your strengthening voice. I’m contributing several pieces. The other editors are in drydock. But I myself, more barnacles than hull, go on. The younger generation rates zero; we aging writers are the whole hope of the future.

  Give out.

  Saw your old pal [R. P.] Blackmur at Yale last week, and he is even older. He drops lighted cigarettes in the furniture and slowly searches for them. This made good sport for the sober watchers. I was one.

  Rispondi, amico! [63].

  We have two weeks.

  To Susan Glassman

  November 30, 1960 [Tivoli] Carissima! Washington, Wed Dec 21st at 8:40. What-what-what? Yours in frenzied speed,

  Bellow the Rocket, with a rocket’s love!

  To Richard Stern

  December 10, 1960 Tivoli

  Dear Dick—

  This is very good news, all of it. Congratulations! And congratulate Gay for me (if she knows that I know). I belong to the increase-and-multiply school myself, sons-of-Abraham division. As for the books, they’ll give you a fixed place on the map, and in these backward times that’s not so easy to obtain.

  Herzog is like Old Man River, he don’t say nothing. You and me we sweat and strain but he empties into the Gulf. We’re close to the halfway mark. And I’m getting ready to take off for Puerto Rico. [ . . . ]

  All the best,

  To the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

  27 December 1960 Tivoli, N.Y.

  CONFIDENTIAL REPORT ON FELLOWSHIP CANDIDATE

  Name of Candidate: Mrs. Grace Paley

  An excellent writer, fresh, original, independent, clear in her aims. She’s written some stunning stories. In speaking of “fresh news” Mrs. Paley does not exaggerate. I have published one chapter from her novel in the magazine I edit. If I were a publisher I’d like to publish her book. I hope the Foundation will help her to finish it.

  To Mark Harris

  [n.d.]

  Dear Mark—

  When my father died I was for a long time sunk. I hope you’re a wiser sufferer. My business is survival, with pain unavoidable.

  By now I’m far better. Thanks for job offer. Have to say no.

  All best,

  1961

  To Susan Glassman

  [January 15, 1961] [Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico] Dolly: I am away, spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch. [ . . . ] I miss you already. I’m going out now to lunch with Keith, who just blew in.

  Till tomorrow.

  To Susan Glassman

  January 16, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

  On the plane, only I had bathed. There were three hundred passengers and six hundred children. Next to me a priest smoked cigars. He had a dozen in his upper coat pocket and said that’ll be just about enough for the trip. Then came cold supper. Ham wrapped around asparagus, roast beef in red something and glazed chicken breast with a first lieutenant’s stripe in red pimento. After which coffee-flavored French pastry. Everybody dying of heat and finally PR almost on time. Your absence made me take two sleeping pills, from which I haven’t yet recovered. So till tomorrow your glad lover looks with dazed eyes at the mango trees. This is like nowhere else. I feel like little Gray Sambo.

  Last night my pillow was you—a poor substitute. Particulars follow. Eat! Don’t fret!

  Love,

  To Susan Glassman

  January 18, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

  Dolly—

  I am writing on one of the consecrated pages, two Cuba libres in me at Botsfords’ tennis club, tropical sunset, the Caribbean like a sublime footpath behind, and the palm trees doing their job in front. There are problems (O heavy word!). I need a car, a house, a stone, a leaf and a door. The island is marvelous. You will fall in love with it, being of an open nature. You will. It’s going to be a great March. Must, however, find a place to live. Keith was too confident about the places available. Wants me to live with him forty-five minutes out and with three kids, and maid, and no car. I see now that a Vespa is suicidal. This driving makes Rome and Paris look like Wellesley and Vassar. [ . . . ]

  The wire was signed Pres.-elect and MRS. Kennedy.

  Love,

  Bellow evidently refers to an invitation to John F. Kennedy’s inauguration delivered by Western Union.

  To Susan Glassman

  January 23, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

  Dolly—

  I’m getting nowhere that I can see. One week in Puerto Rico and my inquiring mind’s very well satisfied. I’d be happy to return, but no, the grille is down now and I must try to wake up from this pressing, beautiful heat—everlasting summer—and the depressed sense of having come out of the movies at midday. I haven’t yet found a place. The Botsfords are kind, the kids lovely, the Puerto neighbors friendly and all that jazz, but I am on the turntable with no music coming forth. And I begin to miss you badly.

  I’ve fought the good fight against the tropics. People advise me to rest more and give up the Northern tempo. I realize I adore running and dislike repose. Now I’ve seen bananas growing. Okay! Shall I lie under a tree with eyes shut and mouth open like a child and let the lizards chase over me?

  And I really do miss you—even your earnestness; sometimes it has struck me funny, but I miss it.

  Write me, Susie, I need to hear something good from you.

  Love,

  To Ralph Ross

  January 20, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

  Dear Ralph—

  The scandal on the grapevine from Mpls. evidently isn’t all contra-Bellow. Well, well—it has its amusing aspect, even. All these senseless old words like adultery and infidelity and love honor obey. Well, you told me I didn’t understand the fabric of society and a word to the wise has made a student of me. Not a cynic, but a student.

  [Ted] Hoffman tells me you were great at Carnegie [Tech]. Did you want that fancy job? I thought it no harm to put your name in the hopper.

  Puerto Rico is a long way from the Jacks and Jills and Jonases. It suits me fine. I have general friends, all-purpose friends, a dear friend, and I’m writing a book, growing a new life the way newts grow tails.

  Best to Alicia.

  Yours ever,

  To Ralph Ellison

  [n.d.] [Rio Piedras]

  Dear Ralph:

  It’s great here in the tropics. I look out and see the little birds cringe in the mahogany tree as the helicopter swoops over. This is, and for once Kazin had it right, one of the most noisy places in the entire world. But one must rise above ordinary complaints. Perhaps the noise means something, and I try to tune in. Meanwhile I go on, looking for a place to live, and that’s not simple here either. There’s a great shortage in winter because of the vacationists from New York. And nevertheless I keep going, and drift with the stray dogs and the lizards and wonder how many ways a banana leaf can split. The dog population is Asiatic—wandering tribes of mongrels. They turn up in all the fashionable places, and in the modern university buildings, the cafeterias—there are always a few hounds sleeping in a cool classroom, and at night they howl and fight. But with one another, not with the rats, another huge population, reddish brown and fearless. You see them in vacant lots downtown, and at the exclusive tennis club at the seashore. I won’t be surprised to see them at the crap table, watching the game. Then there is the mongoose clan. They eliminated the snakes, but now no one knows what to do about their raids on the chickens. So much for the zoology of this place. The island is beautiful The towns stink. The crowds are aimless, cheerful, curious and gaudy. Drivers read at the wheel, they sing, they eat and they screw while driving. Keith had an accident last week. So far, in his little Volkswagen (with ninety thousand miles on it) I’ve escaped. But I should get clipped soon. What else? I miss Susie, but badly. I hope she’ll be able to come down soon.


  Write me a note. And can you keep the Tivoli post office supplied with those large manila envelopes for forwarding?

  Remember me to Fanny.

  All best,

  To David Peltz

  February 2, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico

  Dear Dave—

  Don’t ask! But Division St. seems to have made us of iron, and we survive it all. But, to the point: A very good friend of mine, Hannah Arendt, at Northwestern as visiting lecturer, wants to see Chicago. Can you show her interesting things? She’s great. Perhaps you’ve read her stuff. Well over fifty—Phyllis needn’t worry.

  Love,

  To Susan Glassman

  February 8, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

  Dolly, from your nutty but devoted and adoring lover, here are a few pages more of this impossible Herzog whom I love like a foster brother. I’m sorry about your brother. I feel so very loving towards you I could take the whole thing on myself and give you a rest under the sun—lying on the sand, well loved and recovering from the snows and grief of New York. Sacre bleu! What a jerk I am. But since I have gone off on you, let’s make the most of the climate, anyway. Let us cling to the climate and to each other.

  Now sweetheart, list. The name of the woman at Dell is Elizabeth Shepherd. Thank heaven I’ve got that down without fucking up the spelling; never was there such a fucky-knuckled character. Tear up as many of the books as you have and give them to her, and when you come down we’ll draft the introduction and it’ll pay for the expensive apartment we’ll have to take. But the hell with that. Money will be found. There are always more wind-falls. Now the CBC has paid me an unexpected three hundred to produce [my one-act play] “The Wrecker” on TV. I should knock off a few of those little things. They earn one a lot of money over the long pull. So if one must pay two hundred fifty, one pays two hundred fifty. I’m so greedy to see you, I can’t maintain the normal greed. We’ll work matters out.

  I’ve gotten a very clever and affectionate card from Greg about his grades (quite high) and I don’t see how I can turn down the U. of C.—because of him. He’s applied for a scholarship. So the money I’m paid there will be the least of it. As for you and me, dolly, I am not supposing that by next winter there’ll be such a problem ab’t Chicago as you anticipate. Boy, the ambiguity of this Bellow! But I love you very much, Susie.

  To Louis Gallo

  February 15, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico

  Dear Mr. Gallo:

  Your letter was a little sassy but it was amusing, too, and on the whole I thought you meant well but were being awkward, and what’s the good of being a writer if you must cry every time someone makes a face? I became an editor against my will, because I’m tired of enduring the nausea that comes over me when I pick up a Little Magazine or a Literary Review. I could not bring myself to believe that matters must really be so bad—that everyone was really so spoiled and lazy and opportunistic and sly and snobbish and hopeless—that educated people really must deserve to be despised by their brothers in business (I don’t mean college-educated people but those who have developed hearts and intelligences)—that the people who have power over us might as well exercise it because we have well deserved their abuse by our stupid cowardice. In short, Mr. Gallo, not to spell out the cultural history of America in the Thirties, Forties or Fifties, I decided, together with some friends who felt as I did, that it was not very profitable to keep wringing one’s hands over this wicked condition. And, full of illusions, we therefore started a magazine. (The first aria of TNS #3 contains—or will when it appears in about a month—my estimate of the early returns on this venture.) There is no money in it for me or any of the others. I still go out now and again and teach school. I don’t mind too much. Not to crown myself with too many flowers, more than my weak head can stand, the sacrifice is not really great. [ . . . ]

  You have guessed my religion, Mr. Gallo—Louis, if I may. If Mr. Einstein, Albert, declined to believe that God was playing dice with the universe, I—we—can’t believe, ugly as things have become, and complicated, that human life is nothing but the misery we are continually shown. I worry about Affirmation and the Life-Affirmers—the princes of the big time [New York City] across the river from where you buy your Drano [Trenton] who whoop it up for Life . . . But I’d better check myself. I have some things to add to Seize the Day but not in this expository style.

  I hope The Noble Savage will work, or at least start something, and I hope to see more of your writing, a great deal more, in the magazine and elsewhere.

  As for your views of what I do—well, yes, your judgment is pretty sound, I believe. When I got the idea for Augie March—or rather when I discovered that one could free oneself, I became so wildly excited I couldn’t control the book and my hero became too disingenuous. However, I don’t enjoy discussing old books.

  I must now go and read the menu at the lunch counter below. It’s noon, and I get hungry by the clock.

  To Jack Ludwig

  [n.d.] [Rio Piedras]

  Dear Jack;

  I have tried very hard to avoid writing this letter, but I suppose there’s nothing else to do now. Your phenomenal reply of February 4th forces me to tell you a few of the things I feel about your relations to the magazine and me, personally.

  First, as regards TNS. I know how well you can tell yourself, within your Ludwig Disneyland, that you have done things, edited, attended to the needs of the magazine. With you, the intention is enough. A few passes of the Ludwig wand and voilà—a magazine! You have done nothing in months but read a few manuscripts. Others you have detained for periods up to half a year, and when asked about them have simply answered that your secretary [ . . . ] had stashed them away. Is that all? When I asked you to edit things, you said you couldn’t, you had TV programs, lectures and other obligations. Still the manuscripts kept coming back from you, when in their own sweet time they did come back, with scrawled notes recommending editing. I have those notes, a whole collection of them. Therefore, I did the [Jara] Ribnikar [piece], and thoroughly, did this and that, and would, let me add, have continued to carry you—I think my letters of last summer made that clear, those unanswered letters which were never without friendly inquiries—if you had shown the slightest sign of commitment to the magazine. I know nothing of what you felt. Only God knows that. But I do know what your actions were. And the “unintended slight” has nothing to do with it. What do you mean by “slight”? I can’t figure that out. It’s perfectly true that I was off in Poland for a time for reasons you understand as well as I do, and perhaps even better. By now I can’t be sure that I do know more about them. And Keith [Botsford] was off in Venice, that’s true too. I assumed that during my absence you two would take charge of TNS, and Keith assumed that we would do the same while he was gone. But I was in Warsaw and he in Venice, not in New York. You, an editor of the magazine, come to town on business of your own, and to mend your fences, and call neither me nor [Aaron] Asher, but conceal your presence, and then, after having done practically nothing since early summer, you write from Mpls. to ask me for a table of contents you might have gotten on the phone from Aaron. What can you, without hallucination, believe you have to do with TNS? You were looking forward to the two of us in PR handling #4! And what did you do about #3? You sent two inept and scarcely readable paragraphs for the arias which I threw out in disgust. I don’t think you are a fit editor of the magazine. You have, in some departments, good judgment. I trusted your taste and thought you might be reliable as an editor, but you are too woolly, self-absorbed, rambling, ill-organized, slovenly, heedless and insensitive to get on with. And you must be in a grotesque mess, to have lost your sense of reality to the last shred. I think you never had much of it to start with, and your letter reveals that that’s gone, too.

  In fact it’s a fantastic document and I’m thinking of framing it for my museum. You thought I’d be at the boat to greet Keith? Which boat? I’ve heard of no boat. You took Sondra’s word for it that I was in Tivoli? Well, for s
everal days with Adam I was there. But I was in New York a good deal of the time, and so were you, before Sondra arrived. And besides, why take Sondra’s word for it? She and I exchange no personal information. How would she know where I was? Did I write her that I would be at Tivoli? Without consulting me, you phoned [my lawyer] John Goetz in Mpls. to find out whether I was giving you an accurate account of the legal situation last spring, but without a second thought you simply accept what Sondra tells you of my whereabouts. There seems to me to be a small imbalance here. Especially since we’re not only colleagues but “friends,” and haven’t seen each other in nearly a year. Pretty odd, isn’t it? And if you had phoned (and I believe you’d have had the strength to resist my invitation to Tivoli) would I have come to New York to see you? In all this there is some ugliness, something I don’t want explained, though I’m sure that as a disciple of the Hasidim and believer in Dialogue and an enthusiast for [Abraham Joshua] Heschel, and a man of honor from whom I have heard and endured many lectures and reproaches and whose correction I have accepted, you have a clear and truthful explanation. All the worse for you if you are not hypocritical. The amount of internal garbage you haven’t taken cognizance of must be, since you never do things on the small scale, colossal.