Saul Bellow_ Letters Part 36

To Jacques Barzun March 21, 1977 Chicago Dear Mr. Barzun: I'm deeply grateful to you and to the members of the American Academy and Inst.i.tute of Arts and Letters for this distinguished award. It is a great honor, and my distress at being unable to receive it in person is also great. I am leaving the States soon and on May 18th I will be somewhere in the Middle East. May I ask my publisher to receive the award for me? I shall provide him with a few words to say. Of course I will be glad to send some pages for the ma.n.u.script exhibition. You may be sure that I will keep the news under my hat.

Yours with equal parts delight and disappointment, Sincerely yours,

Barzun had written to inform Bellow that he'd won the Gold Medal for Fiction of the American Academy and Inst.i.tute of Arts and Letters.

To Ralph Ross March 22, 1977 Chicago Dear Ralph: Years ago (G.o.d, what a long time it seems, and how far away Minneapolis is!) you told me something valuable, and it was so unexpected that I couldn't react intelligently on the spot but carried the remark off and worked on it for a couple of decades. You said that Isaac [Rosenfeld] was the most unworldly person you had ever known, with one exception: Compared with me, Isaac was the complete sophisticate. I felt felt the truth of this immediately-being what I was, I couldn't expect to the truth of this immediately-being what I was, I couldn't expect to understand. understand. And I always made a special point of seeming to be intensely practical and competent because I had no grasp of real life. Isaac was what our French friends call " And I always made a special point of seeming to be intensely practical and competent because I had no grasp of real life. Isaac was what our French friends call "faux naif," and I saw that all along and understood that he wouldn't have needed such an act if he hadn't been so clever. He was trying to act his way out of (relative) worldliness. I was working in the opposite direction. Was I so innocent? Self-absorbed, rather. Only it was no ordinary form of self-absorption because I could could understand what I was determined to understand. And if I hadn't sensed so many frightful things I wouldn't have been so intensely unworldly. Evidently I was determined not to understand whatever was deeply threatening-allowed myself to know what conformed to my objectives, and no more. A tall order, to bury so many powers of observation. That sounds immodest; I mean only to be objective. But all the orders have been tall. If you had followed up your shrewd remark you might have saved me some time, but I a.s.sume you thought that if I couldn't work out the hint I couldn't be expected to bear a full examination either. I had to go through the whole Sondra-Jack Ludwig business, for instance. I gave them, and others, terrific entertainment. Sondra sent me to the English Department to threaten to resign if they didn't re-appoint Ludwig, whom they had good reason to loathe. It was a barrel of fun. I'm not so keen on this sort of Goldoni comedy as I once was (small wonder), but I can see the humor of it. It gives me great satisfaction to look back in detachment and to think of the wit the G.o.ds gave us when they had to reduce our scope. But why didn't they reduce our ambitions correspondingly? Why were we fired up with glorious dreams of achievement leading to such appalling waste? No one could make a true success except a few private persons with limited aims. Some of us, trying hard, were wonderfully unstinting of themselves. I think of John [Berryman], so generous in self-destruction. Or Isaac, who put on every st.i.tch of virtue he had, and got on his horse and jumped into the big hole in the Forum. No one who set out to make the big scene in a big way could, in the nature of the case, get very far. understand what I was determined to understand. And if I hadn't sensed so many frightful things I wouldn't have been so intensely unworldly. Evidently I was determined not to understand whatever was deeply threatening-allowed myself to know what conformed to my objectives, and no more. A tall order, to bury so many powers of observation. That sounds immodest; I mean only to be objective. But all the orders have been tall. If you had followed up your shrewd remark you might have saved me some time, but I a.s.sume you thought that if I couldn't work out the hint I couldn't be expected to bear a full examination either. I had to go through the whole Sondra-Jack Ludwig business, for instance. I gave them, and others, terrific entertainment. Sondra sent me to the English Department to threaten to resign if they didn't re-appoint Ludwig, whom they had good reason to loathe. It was a barrel of fun. I'm not so keen on this sort of Goldoni comedy as I once was (small wonder), but I can see the humor of it. It gives me great satisfaction to look back in detachment and to think of the wit the G.o.ds gave us when they had to reduce our scope. But why didn't they reduce our ambitions correspondingly? Why were we fired up with glorious dreams of achievement leading to such appalling waste? No one could make a true success except a few private persons with limited aims. Some of us, trying hard, were wonderfully unstinting of themselves. I think of John [Berryman], so generous in self-destruction. Or Isaac, who put on every st.i.tch of virtue he had, and got on his horse and jumped into the big hole in the Forum. No one who set out to make the big scene in a big way could, in the nature of the case, get very far.

I don't think the Prize is going to make much difference. It's been very confusing and delusive, but the delusions aren't hard to shake off. Some of the contemporary literary winners have made wonderful comments about Stockholm. Seferis said it allowed him, after long effort, to be n.o.body n.o.body, to be unnoticed, as Homer said of Ulysses. The noise dies down, and then you find your scale. If you have any sense, you go back to your trade, and the humor is part of my trade.

I'm grateful for what you told me way back when. I should have moved faster but reluctance (or was it torpor?) was part of the problem. You still keep a benevolent eye on me from afar. I feel it and send you my affectionate thanks.

I'm going to be in California next October or November. Let's arrange to meet.

Blessings,

To the American Academy and Inst.i.tute of Arts and Letters (Read in Bellow's absence at the Annual Ceremonial, May 18, 1977) When the honorific rains come, there's no stopping them, and as the honors pelt my humble roof, I sometimes awake in the night and hear a Scriptural warning: "Look unto you when all men shall speak well of you!" But as that can never happen, I whisper "Fat chance!" and I am temporarily comforted. Somerset Maugham says somewhere that becoming famous is like getting a string of pearls. People admire them, but from time to time the owner wonders whether they are real or cultured. Politicians may love a consensus, but writers don't quite trust it, and I sometimes wonder, "Are they giving me all these diplomas, testimonials and medals in order to get rid of me? Am I headed for the waxworks?" The answer to this is: "The Bellow they know may be ready for Madame Tussaud's but the real Bellow has already made his getaway and lighted out for the territory ahead." But in that territory, if I am lucky enough to reach it, I will think of this Gold Medal with particular satisfaction. This one, awarded by my own colleagues, by those who know what it is in these times to write books in the USA, is the most valuable of all. By making the award, my colleagues are telling me, most tactfully and feelingly, that it's okay-that all these honors do not mean that I've gone wrong anywhere, but that I've delivered some of the goods at least. There remain (with luck) about ten years of the threescore and ten to deliver the rest. I am most grateful for this vote of confidence, and I shall do everything possible to complete the s.h.i.+pment.

To Adam Bellow Sept. 25, 1977 Cambridge Dear Adam: Your father, used to the decades zipping by, sure that there would always be more where they came from, is now beginning to understand that he is at the shorter end of time. This doesn't bring a sad, bad feeling, but rather a sense that I'd better do the things I haven't done. Not undo the things that I have done-there isn't time for that. And when you write to me about your romances, I have a feeling of comfort (for your sake) seeing that you still have an endless perspective of decades. I shouldn't have used the plural "romances"-excuse me. But if patterns persist, the singular hasn't much of a chance.

I've never lived in Cambridge before, and I'm inspecting rather than relis.h.i.+ng the place. I like the joy it gives people to be a.s.sociated with this town, the big cultural sense they have of themselves and their sublime luck. I watch the young men rowing in the river, and I exercise my muscular Jewish midwestern skepticism indoors.

I agree with Sondra that you oughtn't to travel too much up and down the seacoast but concentrate on your studies; I am, or should be, one of those studies, however, and it would please me greatly if you could find time to visit Boston once or twice this autumn. Three weekends in October are already planned away, out of reach. We'll be in NYC on the weekend of the 14th, but November is fairly open (as yet). You might like to come up to New York on the 15th, and to Boston on a weekend in November or early December. Let me know whether you can manage this.

Love, Pop

To Margaret Staats September 24, 1977 Cambridge Dear Maggie: One of the penalties of growing older is that my life has so many divisions of old and new, and divisions among the divisions, as my mind is changed and my affections spread (to say nothing of dislikes)-that in the end I can't attend to anyone as I should. And when I get a letter from you, to whom I would have so much to say if we were sitting in the same room, I have to let it lie in my old black satchel until I can pull myself together. Then the whole effort is one of editing out the mountain of chaotic facts so as to get a reasonably coherent message. But the more coherent, the more inexact it becomes. Because I'm in the midst of multiple revisions I'm not really able to do more than express doubts about everything I used to consider stable in life, and transmit my affections, which haven't changed. Not the main ones, and you are one of the permanent objects, or subjects. It upsets me to hear of your operations, comforts me to hear of your marriage, and when you ask me to help with the magazine [Quest, where she was then an editor] I won't refuse. The condition I've described doesn't make me a good subject for interviews. I'm all transitions, and this isn't a comfortable age for it. Do you know Emerson's poem "Terminus"? "As the bird trims herself to the gale / I trim myself to the storm of time," the old boy said. But that's only part of the matter. The rest-and the rest is worse than storming time-is that there are almost no people left to whom I speak my mind. And when I say "left" I don't mean that those who might have understood what goes on are dead. No, I couldn't communicate with those either, unless they'd learned something since they died. And when I say this to you, I make no claim to be special. I haven't been at all special. I made all the plainest, most obvious mistakes. But all the large "cultural" trends, and especially the most prestigious ones, are so obviously wrong that I don't have to act to isolate myself. I am pa.s.sive, registering what's wrong in what this civilization of ours thinks when it speaks of Nature, G.o.d, the soul, and it cuts me off from all organized views. It doesn't cut me off at all from the deeper being of people-in fact that's where my reaction against these organized views begins. But I can't manage this new kind of consciousness. I don't know what to do about it.

Always your devoted friend,

To Owen Barfield September 29, 1977 Cambridge, Ma.s.s.

Dear Mr. Barfield: If you hadn't let me know that you were coming, I wouldn't have thought it in the least churlish. I am old enough to begin to understand how difficult travel is for people of advanced years. Unfortunately, I shan't be in the Midwest. My wife and I are teaching at Brandeis, in Waltham, Ma.s.sachusetts, this autumn. But I would be most willing, even eager, to fly down to New York if you can spare the time from your schedule at Drew University.

Wesleyan University Press did not send me your book, but I obtained a copy through channels and have read most of it, admiringly. "Read" is not the word for it; I am obliged to study your essays, and I have with a certain amount of difficulty come to understand some of them reasonably well. Writing novels does not prepare one for all this hard work in epistemology. In London I embarra.s.sed myself by asking you several stupid questions. That, unfortunately, is how I learn. I humiliate myself, I grieve, and the point remains permanently with me. I think you will understand how hard this work must be for a man who has led the life that I have led. I count on you to forgive me (as well as you can). The other day I received a letter from a lady who had heard the talk I gave in Edinburgh and who reproached me in the name of what she called all the "anthropops" [disciples of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy] in the front row. They had come to hear a great and stirring message. Instead, I spoke merely of what it had been like to become a novelist in the city of Chicago. What? Waste everyone's time with streets and slums and race and crimes and s.e.x problems (I hadn't mentioned s.e.x, by the way). I must learn to do better, and she appealed to me to take more instruction and draw more inspiration from Owen Barfield. She is, in her way, bang right. But what am I to do? I can't pa.s.s myself off for a sage, and it wasn't as a sage that the Arts Council invited me to Edinburgh.

I thought you might be mildly amused by this.

In any case, I would welcome the opportunity to see you in New York, between planes.

With best regards,

To Richard Stern October 1, 1977 Cambridge Dear Richard: [ . . . ] I strive manfully with life's problems. They will say in the next world, "You certainly went on in good faith, Kid, doing what you were brought up to do. Very responsible. You may have missed a thing or two (of importance) by sticking to these commitments." But there's nothing to be done now. I feel a little weaker than I did in the last decade. I don't recover all my strength in sleep or other forms of rest. I get more and more restless, to less and less purpose. And I can't keep up with all the difficulties. The reason I was slow to write to you was that the court proceedings were hotter and heavier than usual. Just now, for instance, I am in contempt. I am coming to Daniel's bar mitzvah but I may be arrested in front of K[ehilath] A[nshe] M[a'ariv] next Sat.u.r.day despite my truce agreement (for the weekend) with Susan. The court held me in contempt because-I will tell it in legal language-pursuant to advice of counsel I refused to comply with the alimony a.s.sessment of the court but appealed the decision. Until the appeal is formally filed, I am in comtempt (I can't even spell the d.a.m.n word, there's so much emotional interference). My lawyers tell me that I won't be hand-cuffed and dragged away to alimony row. Such a vile shock, or culmination, might actually reverse the emotional tides and bring me peace. Who knows?

So, I go on lecturing on Joseph Conrad, and writing odds and ends, taking absurd telephone messages. For example, this morning: Fortune Fortune wants to print an article on the earnings of authors. The Franklin Mint Co. wants to put out wants to print an article on the earnings of authors. The Franklin Mint Co. wants to put out Humboldt's Gift Humboldt's Gift in limp leather, an inscribed edition of fifteen thousand. They will pay me two bucks per signature. If I consent to sign my name fifteen thousand times I will be thirty thousand richer. I mean fifteen, for the govt. would take half. Shall I sign my name fifteen thousand times? My idea is to hire a forger, and pay him two bits per. in limp leather, an inscribed edition of fifteen thousand. They will pay me two bucks per signature. If I consent to sign my name fifteen thousand times I will be thirty thousand richer. I mean fifteen, for the govt. would take half. Shall I sign my name fifteen thousand times? My idea is to hire a forger, and pay him two bits per.

If I'm not in County Jail next weekend, I shall give you a ring.

Yours affectionately,

To Richard Stern [Postmarked Cambridge, Ma.s.s., 4 October 1977]

Dear d.i.c.k, Congratulations! Another son. Wordsworth said, "Stern daughter" ("Ode to Duty") but Gay came through with a boy. Well, a son is what the old folks used to call "a Gan-Eden-schlepper," a puller-into Paradise. [ . . . ] I'm very glad for you, and the kid is fortunate in his parents and siblings. The children must be terribly excited-Chris gets a bigger crew, but poor Andrew, he'll find it hard to swallow at first.

I'm glad to get your kind words about Herzog Herzog. What am I saying?-I swallow them with joy. That Herzog Herzog is all right. I hope his luck will last. Though I father interesting characters, it's in the upbringing that they lose out. is all right. I hope his luck will last. Though I father interesting characters, it's in the upbringing that they lose out.

I'm a very imperfect and accidental sort of person, a poor over-interrogated witness; you should outstrip me soon. Perhaps even will in any case. I know better than to take any writer's word about his own book. Already in the first pages there was a good deal of strong feeling [in yours].

As for Leeds, I'm sorry for your sake but pleased you'll be in Chicago next winter-and s.h.i.+ls. As Edward would say, it's going to be capital. s.h.i.+ls. As Edward would say, it's going to be capital.

Try to come out in Sept. Blessings on Gay, and young Nick.

Yours affectionately,

To Edward s.h.i.+ls November 14, 1977 Cambridge Dear Edward, Your call the other morning came when I needed support and I was hoping for just such a sign of affection and solidarity. You told me once that one didn't need many friends; that is perfectly true and it's also just as well since one need not expect to have too many. I am very lucky in having the few that are essential. And you have a friend in me, I a.s.sure you. [. . . ]

I'm able to fend off my troubles most of the time and get some work done. My anxieties have a way of attacking me at about 3:00 A.M. when my defenses are down and then I think all kinds of nonsensical things and feel agitated. I don't need eight hours of rest, I'm in good health. My mind, though, does require a longer nightly absence from consciousness than it is getting and sometimes feels sere at the edges. Cambridge does not fascinate me. I can take these ma.s.ses of ivy or leave them. Alexandra, among her mathematicians, is very cheerful but I am beginning to long for vulgar Chicago where facts are facts.

Yours most affectionately,

1978.

To Leon Wieseltier January 18, 1978 Chicago Dear Leon: I intended to write at once about your essays but life insists on teaching me a few more lessons. I thought I knew corrupt Chicago, the money world, the legal and accounting professions and all their psychological types and all the political parallels-I did, of course, but it was an intelligent person's closet knowledge and fate decided that I should get a finis.h.i.+ng course, that I should feel all the fingers on my skin and have my internal organs well squeezed. In its way this is fair enough. I said said I wanted to know; I claimed that I already knew; and I held positions in the Higher Life, was its representative in the Midwest. All that has got to be paid for, and I'm in the process of doing that. There is no other way. It's time-consuming, sordid-one is abused, dragged through the I wanted to know; I claimed that I already knew; and I held positions in the Higher Life, was its representative in the Midwest. All that has got to be paid for, and I'm in the process of doing that. There is no other way. It's time-consuming, sordid-one is abused, dragged through the schmutz schmutz [ [85], publicized. That's one's country, as it is, and that's one's own high-minded self, dedicated to art and wisdom. But then convenience and comfort make us dimwitted, and celebrity threatens to complete one's imbecility. I've seen more than one big figure turn into a cork dummy. It might be nice to have a garden of one's own to cultivate at a time like this and let the preposterous world do its preposterous things. I love rose bushes, but I love objectivity even more, and self-objectivity more than any other type. This makes all the noise, troubling, cheating, vengefulness and money-grabbing tolerable and at times even welcome. When I come home, though, or go to my office, I find the books, journals and letters flooding in. I haven't the time to read, much less comment or answer. No sorcerer arrives to bail the apprentice out. When insomnia permits it, I dream of monasteries or hermit's caves. But I'm a Jew, and married-uxorious.

I tell you these things-for openers-because I found that I could tell you things. It made me happy to see you. It will take you some time to learn that I've a reputation for reticence. A Village painter who did psychiatry as a sideline once called me an "oral miser." He was right, I'm afraid. I couldn't talk to him. There's no one in Chicago to make me freely conversational. Joe Epstein I like and respect but I don't open my heart to him because he doesn't have the impulse-your impulse-to open up. Besides he's more fair-minded than we are, or more circ.u.mspect when he discusses our bogus contemporaries. You and I have in common a vivid impatience with jerks which makes us wave our arms and cry out. You won me with your first outburst.

So I galloped at once through the articles you sent and was disappointed only when there was no more to read. They were, as I expected (no, I got more than I expected), comprehensively intelligent, learned, lively, without nonsense, delightful. Some of your views I don't share. I knew [Nicola] Chiaromonte well, liked him, occasionally agreed with him, considered him to be one of the better European intellectuals of the Fifties and Sixties. But Nick was, in many ways, a standard product, often deficient in taste, sn.o.bbish. You came closest to the truth in examining his agreement with Hannah Arendt, that superior Krautess, on the differences between Platonic and Marxian intellectuals. The reason Nick and Hannah failed to notice the congealment of intellectuals into their own "stratum" (your word) was that they were terribly proud of their own super-eligibility for the highest of all strata. Their American friends could never hope to join them there. We were very nice but not kulturny kulturny enough to be taken seriously. But I shan't go on about Nick, who was certainly a considerable person. I don't always respect the rule of enough to be taken seriously. But I shan't go on about Nick, who was certainly a considerable person. I don't always respect the rule of de mortuis de mortuis [ [86] but in his case I shall. Even in Hannah's case, though she tempts me more strongly. I used to say unforgivably wicked things about her, and that wickedness should yield to Death. Still it is hard to stop the genius of abuse. If belles lettres belles lettres still existed it would be pleasant to write something about that. I'm sure it's already been done. Probably by Lucian, or someone else I haven't read. But mostly I was in enthusiastic agreement with your views and sent up more than one cheer. still existed it would be pleasant to write something about that. I'm sure it's already been done. Probably by Lucian, or someone else I haven't read. But mostly I was in enthusiastic agreement with your views and sent up more than one cheer.

What a pity we had so little time to talk. We have a good deal to tell each other.

All best,

At Bellow's request, Wieseltier had sent a selection of his essays including a review of Chiaromonte's The Worm of Consciousness and Other Essays, from The New York Review of Books. The Worm of Consciousness and Other Essays, from The New York Review of Books.

To Sam Wanamaker March 3, 1978 Chicago Dear Sam, I take your proposition [about a film of Henderson the Rain King Henderson the Rain King] seriously, and Marlon Brando in the role has a certain charm for me-the charm of the unlikely but feasible. There are any number of reasons why I could not write a screenplay-one is that I am writing a book; no, two books. I don't know what Harriet Wa.s.serman has done about Public Television; we've been out of touch, but I am sending your letter to her and she will be able to give you (I hope) the information you want.

All best to you, To Leon Wieseltier March 9, 1978 Chicago Dear Leon: We're taking off for London on one of those diabolical machines that persuade you your journey is necessary. Well, maybe it is. But from my window over Lake Michigan, which is frozen two miles out, bands of spring water begin to show, green, blue and white. The air is the same. You feel it all squeezing and opening like the folds of an accordion. You are are the accordion, the transparencies are inside. Even if the music is somewhat silly, I don't want to leave. Also, against my will, I have to write a review for the the accordion, the transparencies are inside. Even if the music is somewhat silly, I don't want to leave. Also, against my will, I have to write a review for the Times Times of Kollek's of Kollek's Memoirs Memoirs. That puts me into the field of diplomacy. First I gather my real opinions together, then I run them through the adapter and hope for a balanced compromise. I like Teddy's kind of character; he is rude, b.u.mptious, but the book is interesting in its way and more candid than most of its kind. The "personal" books of politicians are vexing. How many exceptions are there? De Gaulle, Clemenceau. But if it takes big wars to beget these Clemenceaus we can do without them.

I'm sure your piece ["Auschwitz and Peace," in The New York Times The New York Times] was extremely hard to write. It's a good one, and it will turn discussion in the right direction. You know what to expect from hot controversy over Jewish questions-bangs and blows on the noggin. But it was most important to call attention to the effects of Auschwitz on Israeli leaders, and you were more than tactful in putting it-"saving realism," "accommodation is not surrender," the Jews "never hungered for conquest." I don't see what there is for intelligent people to object to. And one of the encouraging things about the Jews is that they can always come up, as if under warranty, with a number of good heads. The others, too, of course, are always there, and you can count on them to call you a trendy dove. A dayge dayge [ [87]!

You touch some rather deep questions-is anything worth writing that doesn't graze graze these at least? I wonder what this stiffness [ . . . ] really signifies. Sometimes I think of it as an impossible degree of wakefulness or bolt-uprightness. Supposing the Europeans, and especially the Germans, to have made their wars and their death-camps in a state of possession, nearly a dream state, the effect on the victims and sufferers was one of super wakefulness. Their portion was-reality. At the very least. In this wakefulness they built their society, their army, fought their wars. Perhaps they see the these at least? I wonder what this stiffness [ . . . ] really signifies. Sometimes I think of it as an impossible degree of wakefulness or bolt-uprightness. Supposing the Europeans, and especially the Germans, to have made their wars and their death-camps in a state of possession, nearly a dream state, the effect on the victims and sufferers was one of super wakefulness. Their portion was-reality. At the very least. In this wakefulness they built their society, their army, fought their wars. Perhaps they see the goyim goyim still ruled by these fatal phantasmagorias of theirs. Is America awake? No kidding! Or France, blundering towards its next elections? And aren't these Jews still spiritually in Europe, together with their dead millions of the war? It's tempting to think whether this reckless game (I wonder whether Begin isn't acting from still ruled by these fatal phantasmagorias of theirs. Is America awake? No kidding! Or France, blundering towards its next elections? And aren't these Jews still spiritually in Europe, together with their dead millions of the war? It's tempting to think whether this reckless game (I wonder whether Begin isn't acting from fated fated motives) may not have its source in some need for critically heightened consciousness. motives) may not have its source in some need for critically heightened consciousness.

I've concluded, however, that when people say such things they are often talking about themselves. So I pause to check myself out.

Are you coming to Chicago soon? Give me some notice and I may be able to organize a public lecture at the university. We have little money, but there are a few dollars in the Committee's lecture fund.

All best,

To James Salter March 29, 1978 Chicago Dear Jim, You won't know anything about Jeffrey Harding unless you come here and look at the County Jail. I don't know what sort of movie one could make about it but the jail itself is worth seeing, if Jeff can get you in (and out) safely.

At the moment it seems a more tranquil spot than Asolo [where Salter was vacationing]. What do you want to go to Italy for, and tempt kidnappers and terrorists? I'm having this out with my son Adam who wants to live in Florence next year and study Dante and Petrarch under the auspices of Smith College. I sent him clippings from the papers, which make no impression on him. I had him talk to my agent [Erich] Linder, who sends his own son to a Swiss university. And I don't know whether you noticed a recent dispatch from Rome about the rage of the Mafia against those kidnappers of Aldo Moro. They denounce the terrorists for ruining the rackets in Italy and threaten to have their people inside the prisons execute the terrorists there if Moro is not set free by March 30th.

Seems to me that you and Adam are being pretty old-fas.h.i.+oned about Italy. I know you want to drink wine and breathe the delicious mountain air, but how much breathing do you think they'll let you do? I suggest you come and look at the County Jail. We can go to Gene and Georgetti's and eat our steak in nice quiet local local Mafia surroundings. Mafia surroundings.

Ciao to you, to you, Jeffrey Harding, who was making a movie about prison life in Chicago, had been referred to Salter by Bellow.

To John Cheever May 18, 1978 Chicago Dear John: I write to you as a member to the Chairman of the Awards Committee [of the American Academy and Inst.i.tute of Arts and Letters]. I perish of greed and envy at the sight of all these awards which didn't exist when we were young and mooching around New York. I have no one to recommend for the [American] Academy in Rome-just as well, I wouldn't want any of my friends shot in the legs-but I would like to recommend David Pryce-Jones who wrote the book on the Mitford girls for the E. M. Forster Award. I'd like also to put up a young author named Max Apple who has written a very good book called The Oranging of America The Oranging of America and also Bette Howland, author of and also Bette Howland, author of Blue in Chicago Blue in Chicago.

There are no critics I could nominate for anything but crucifixion.

Yours with very sincere affection (this because you signed yourself very sincerely yours), Love, too,

To Leon Wieseltier May 19, 1978 Chicago Dear Leon: In Chicago when spring comes and the great sun stirs all this great mess and nature begins to produce all its spring phenomena, it's not so much the budding trees and the blooming flowers that come into their own as the machines and the tarnish and the old building materials, and atmospheric lead and carbon are transposed. You get the spring look for lead and sulphuric derivatives. Yesterday we had gorgeous weather, with of course an Ozone Watch and over-heated automobiles with their hoods up blocking express-ways. I sat in a stalled car and kept calm by thinking about Rudolf Steiner, and I was perfectly sure that I was taking in deadly carcinogens and would get lung cancer. Today spring is low and gray. No harm in this, I suppose. What you feel is that the world has no elasticity. It's probably un-Jewish of me to yield to external conditions in this way. In Lodz, once, I asked Dr. Marek Edelman, who'd been an adolescent fighting in the last days of the Warsaw Ghetto and was now a "cardiolog," whether the ugliness of his urban surroundings didn't bother him, and he looked at me with outright contempt. What difference can the outside outside of things make? It's a kind of idolatry or graven-image susceptibility. You can catch an esthetic clap, whoring after these Ruskins, and serve you d.a.m.n right. Have you heard of Edelman? A remarkable fellow, author of a stirring account of the Ghetto and the Umschlagplatz [deportation point from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka]. of things make? It's a kind of idolatry or graven-image susceptibility. You can catch an esthetic clap, whoring after these Ruskins, and serve you d.a.m.n right. Have you heard of Edelman? A remarkable fellow, author of a stirring account of the Ghetto and the Umschlagplatz [deportation point from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka].

I've been on the road to make money to pay taxes and also legal fees, as well as accountants and wives, and children's tuitions and medical expenses. The patriarchal list should go on to include menservants and maidservants and camels and cattle. I'd be lucky to get into the end of the procession, among the a.s.ses. When I came back I had to finish writing a short essay on Goethe's Italian Journey Italian Journey-a wonderful book-for a German magazine, and so I had no time to go through the letters I'd gotten about our letter [of public protest to the Begin government], but now I've seen most of them, ranging from bouquets to notices of excommunication. You put your name to a doc.u.ment and you get a free bathysphere ride through the oceans of Jewish opinion and emotion. One lady blowfish informed me that the Israelis and the American Jews had problems enough without my acting as any kind of spokesman for them. She could find nothing in my biography or writings that showed any capacity for rational political thinking. Or any other sort. Some of the Israeli papers, I hear from my friend John Auerbach, called me a Russian agent and a Carter stooge. There's nothing I long for less than politics, and I'd be glad to leave political rationality to the Begins and the Weizmanns, if I thought they had it, but Begin was awful on his last trip here, mismanaged everything, demanded the test of strength in the Congress everyone's been dreading and which everything possible should have been done to avoid. He overstates everything, is all emphasis, is pertinacious, hollering-a real Jabotinskyite, and he's going to bring us to a dangerous pitch of fanaticism. It isn't so much that he's wrong on all the issues, he's not; but he doesn't know how to lead the discussion. He's a convulsive sort of man. And imagine the Jews outdone by a Carter. What can explain that but disorder and hysteria in the Jewish ranks. Is there no one in Israel to tell Begin what public relations in the US are all about?

But then there's no one in the US, seemingly, who can tell the Administration what the Saudis, etc. are about. A Bernard Lewis might do it, if anyone would let him get near enough to Jimmy, and if Jimmy were not himself a problem child. And all we private persons can do is think about these matters. They give us thought thought materials. Nor will anyone pay attention to our wisdom, if we should achieve it, what with the Moros and the Cambodias-the crisis-maddened consciousness of intelligent people is what I mean, I suppose. It's because I have a letter from Jean-Paul Sartre asking me to contribute an article to a Big Discussion of the Jewish Question in materials. Nor will anyone pay attention to our wisdom, if we should achieve it, what with the Moros and the Cambodias-the crisis-maddened consciousness of intelligent people is what I mean, I suppose. It's because I have a letter from Jean-Paul Sartre asking me to contribute an article to a Big Discussion of the Jewish Question in Les Temps Modernes Les Temps Modernes next autumn that this comes up. next autumn that this comes up.

Yours ever,

Wieseltier had organized an open letter to protest the Begin government's slowness in answering the peace initiatives of Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat. Signed by prominent American Jews including Bellow, Irving Howe, Jacob Neusner, Seymour Martin Lipset and Lucy Davidowicz, the letter received front-page coverage in The New York Times. The New York Times.

To Ladislas Farago May 24, 1978 Chicago Dear Mr. Farago: I can return your compliments. I read your Patton book with admiration, so it pains me to contradict you. The letter [to The New York Times The New York Times] I signed was probably too vague because it was too cautiously written but it did not support Carter's Middle East policy and it was only mildly critical of Begin. I can't understand why it should be sinful of American Jews to take positions which are taken also in Israel and expressed in the Knesset. The signers of our letter did not presume to tell the Israelis what they should do. No one expects Israel to commit suicide for the sake of "peace." Why does it undermine Begin to enter a caveat against the dangers of annexation and the dangers of a large Arab population within a Greater Israel? But the last thing I want is to get into political controversies. In the Israeli press I have been called a sellout, a fink, a Carter-stooge and a Moscow agent. I don't think any of these tags does me justice-do you? Well, the right tag is hard to find.

Sincerely yours,