Letters (7 page)
Authors: Saul Bellow
1994
George Sarant, son of Isaac and Vasiliki Rosenfeld, dies. In March, Bellow honored at Boston Public Library dinner. Lectures at Adelphi University and, in April, at Harvard. Travels to Portland, Oregon, and Seattle on speaking engagements. In November, while on working holiday on Caribbean island of Saint Martin, falls dangerously ill from ciguatera poisoning after eating contaminated fish. Back in Boston, hospitalized from Thanksgiving until the New Year.
George Sarant, son of Isaac and Vasiliki Rosenfeld, dies. In March, Bellow honored at Boston Public Library dinner. Lectures at Adelphi University and, in April, at Harvard. Travels to Portland, Oregon, and Seattle on speaking engagements. In November, while on working holiday on Caribbean island of Saint Martin, falls dangerously ill from ciguatera poisoning after eating contaminated fish. Back in Boston, hospitalized from Thanksgiving until the New Year.
1995
In January, Edward Shils dies. Bellow resumes teaching duties at Boston University; still convalescent, holds classes at home on Bay State Road. Again able to travel, returns to Hyde Park to address capacity crowd at Mandel Hall of the University of Chicago on “Literature in a Democracy.” Visits friend Werner Dannhauser at Michigan State University and delivers lecture there. Ralph Ellison dies in April. Stanley Elkin dies in June. In July, Bellow’s last short story, “By the Saint Lawrence,” appears in
Esquire.
With Keith Botsford, founds new literary journal,
News from the Republic of Letters
. Gallbladder surgery in December.
In January, Edward Shils dies. Bellow resumes teaching duties at Boston University; still convalescent, holds classes at home on Bay State Road. Again able to travel, returns to Hyde Park to address capacity crowd at Mandel Hall of the University of Chicago on “Literature in a Democracy.” Visits friend Werner Dannhauser at Michigan State University and delivers lecture there. Ralph Ellison dies in April. Stanley Elkin dies in June. In July, Bellow’s last short story, “By the Saint Lawrence,” appears in
Esquire.
With Keith Botsford, founds new literary journal,
News from the Republic of Letters
. Gallbladder surgery in December.
1996
Bellows leave Bay State Road apartment and relocate to house in Brookline. Death of Eleanor Clark in February. In preparation for seminar called “Young Men on the Make: Ambitious Young Men in the Novel,” Bellow re-reads Dostoyevsky’s
Crime and Punishment
. (“[T]he Russians have an immediate charismatic appeal—excuse the Max Weberism. Their conventions allow them to express freely their feelings about nature and human beings. We have inherited a more restricted and imprisoning attitude toward the emotions. We have to work around puritanical and stoical restraints. We lack the Russian openness. Our path is narrower.”) Other readings for course include
Père Goriot
,
The Red and the Black
,
Great Expectations
,
Sister Carrie
and
The Great Gatsby
. Gives University Professors lecture at Boston University. Readings at Harvard and Queens College. Begins work on
Ravelstein
, novel based on life and death of Allan Bloom. After twenty-five years, severs professional ties with Harriet Wasserman and engages Andrew Wylie as literary agent. Meyer Schapiro dies in March. In December, Bellow’s former wife Susan dies of aneurysm, aged sixty-three.
Bellows leave Bay State Road apartment and relocate to house in Brookline. Death of Eleanor Clark in February. In preparation for seminar called “Young Men on the Make: Ambitious Young Men in the Novel,” Bellow re-reads Dostoyevsky’s
Crime and Punishment
. (“[T]he Russians have an immediate charismatic appeal—excuse the Max Weberism. Their conventions allow them to express freely their feelings about nature and human beings. We have inherited a more restricted and imprisoning attitude toward the emotions. We have to work around puritanical and stoical restraints. We lack the Russian openness. Our path is narrower.”) Other readings for course include
Père Goriot
,
The Red and the Black
,
Great Expectations
,
Sister Carrie
and
The Great Gatsby
. Gives University Professors lecture at Boston University. Readings at Harvard and Queens College. Begins work on
Ravelstein
, novel based on life and death of Allan Bloom. After twenty-five years, severs professional ties with Harriet Wasserman and engages Andrew Wylie as literary agent. Meyer Schapiro dies in March. In December, Bellow’s former wife Susan dies of aneurysm, aged sixty-three.
1997
Novella
The Actual
published in April. In July, François Furet suddenly dies. Bellow in Washington, D.C., for unveiling of his portrait at National Portrait Gallery. As always, Bellows spend most of spring, summer and fall in Vermont. Owen Barfield dies in December, aged ninety-nine.
Novella
The Actual
published in April. In July, François Furet suddenly dies. Bellow in Washington, D.C., for unveiling of his portrait at National Portrait Gallery. As always, Bellows spend most of spring, summer and fall in Vermont. Owen Barfield dies in December, aged ninety-nine.
1998
In New York, Bellow participates in tribute to Ralph Ellison at 92nd Street Y. Lectures at Northeastern University, Boston College and Landmark College. Interviewed by Martin Amis for BBC television documentary. In Boston, attends dinner parties and outings with friends new and old, including Ruth and Len Wisse, Stephanie Nelson, Keith and Nathalie Botsford, Rosanna Warren, Judith and Christopher Ricks and Monroe and Brenda Engel. Death in April of Wright Morris. In June, Alfred Kazin dies. In Vermont, dinners and parties with Walter Pozen, Herb and Libby Hillman, Arthur and Lynda Copeland and Frank Maltese; Philip Roth, Norman and Cella Manea, Joan and Jonathan Kleinbard, Sonya and Harvey Freedman, Wendy Freedman, Robert Freedman, and Martin and Isabel Amis make frequent visits.
In New York, Bellow participates in tribute to Ralph Ellison at 92nd Street Y. Lectures at Northeastern University, Boston College and Landmark College. Interviewed by Martin Amis for BBC television documentary. In Boston, attends dinner parties and outings with friends new and old, including Ruth and Len Wisse, Stephanie Nelson, Keith and Nathalie Botsford, Rosanna Warren, Judith and Christopher Ricks and Monroe and Brenda Engel. Death in April of Wright Morris. In June, Alfred Kazin dies. In Vermont, dinners and parties with Walter Pozen, Herb and Libby Hillman, Arthur and Lynda Copeland and Frank Maltese; Philip Roth, Norman and Cella Manea, Joan and Jonathan Kleinbard, Sonya and Harvey Freedman, Wendy Freedman, Robert Freedman, and Martin and Isabel Amis make frequent visits.
1999
Death in May of Saul Steinberg. In June, J. F. Powers dies. Bellow sits for long reflective interview with Romanian novelist Norman Manea, later published in
Salmagundi
. Continues work on
Ravelstein
. Alice Adams dies. In September, Bellow lectures at Montreal. A very pregnant Janis travels with him to Lachine to visit The Saul Bellow Library. Bellow sits for series of interviews with Philip Roth. On December 23 in Boston, Janis gives birth to Naomi Rose Bellow. (“I’m sure no child living will have a better mother than my new child is going to have.”)
Death in May of Saul Steinberg. In June, J. F. Powers dies. Bellow sits for long reflective interview with Romanian novelist Norman Manea, later published in
Salmagundi
. Continues work on
Ravelstein
. Alice Adams dies. In September, Bellow lectures at Montreal. A very pregnant Janis travels with him to Lachine to visit The Saul Bellow Library. Bellow sits for series of interviews with Philip Roth. On December 23 in Boston, Janis gives birth to Naomi Rose Bellow. (“I’m sure no child living will have a better mother than my new child is going to have.”)
2000
Ravelstein
published. Publication party at Lotos Club in New York. Karl Shapiro dies. At Harvard, Bellow reads from
Ravelstein
. Receives New England Library Award. Summer visitors to Vermont include Philip Roth, Maneas, Kleinbards and Amises. In October, Bellow, Janis and Rosie visit the Kleinbards in St. Louis.
Ravelstein
published. Publication party at Lotos Club in New York. Karl Shapiro dies. At Harvard, Bellow reads from
Ravelstein
. Receives New England Library Award. Summer visitors to Vermont include Philip Roth, Maneas, Kleinbards and Amises. In October, Bellow, Janis and Rosie visit the Kleinbards in St. Louis.
2001
Collected Stories
published, with preface by Janis Freedman Bellow and introduction by James Wood.
Collected Stories
published, with preface by Janis Freedman Bellow and introduction by James Wood.
2002
Though ill, Bellow continues at Boston University, inviting James Wood to co-teach seminar. Death of John Auerbach.
Though ill, Bellow continues at Boston University, inviting James Wood to co-teach seminar. Death of John Auerbach.
2003
Library of America begins publishing collected works of Saul Bellow in five uniform volumes. Janis asks Roger Kaplan, Martin Amis, Keith Botsford, James Wood and others to co-teach weekly seminar with Bellow. Rosalyn Tureck dies. Death of sister Jane Bellow Kauffman at ninety-seven.
Library of America begins publishing collected works of Saul Bellow in five uniform volumes. Janis asks Roger Kaplan, Martin Amis, Keith Botsford, James Wood and others to co-teach weekly seminar with Bellow. Rosalyn Tureck dies. Death of sister Jane Bellow Kauffman at ninety-seven.
2004
Bellow receives honorary doctorate from Boston University. Prolonged illness. David Grene dies in September. Bellow, Janis and Rosie still wintering in Brookline, summering in Vermont.
Bellow receives honorary doctorate from Boston University. Prolonged illness. David Grene dies in September. Bellow, Janis and Rosie still wintering in Brookline, summering in Vermont.
2005
Saul Bellow dies at home in Brookline on April 5 and—after traditional Jewish rites—is interred in Brattleboro Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vermont.
Saul Bellow dies at home in Brookline on April 5 and—after traditional Jewish rites—is interred in Brattleboro Cemetery, Brattleboro, Vermont.
PART ONE
1932-1949
O
n winter afternoons when the soil was frozen to a depth of five feet and the Chicago cold seemed to have the headhunter’s power of shrinking your face, you felt in the salt-whitened streets and amid the spattered car bodies the characteristic mixture of tedium and excitement, of narrowness of life together with a strong intimation of scope, a simultaneous expansion and constriction in the soul, a clumsy sense of inadequacy, poverty of means, desperate limitation, and, at the same time, a craving for more, which demanded that “impractical” measures be taken. There was literally nothing to be done about this. Expansion toward what? What form would a higher development take? All you could say was that you accepted this condition as a gambler would accept absurd odds, as a patient accepted his rare disease. In a city of four million people, no more than a dozen had caught it. The only remedy for it was to read and write stories and novels.
n winter afternoons when the soil was frozen to a depth of five feet and the Chicago cold seemed to have the headhunter’s power of shrinking your face, you felt in the salt-whitened streets and amid the spattered car bodies the characteristic mixture of tedium and excitement, of narrowness of life together with a strong intimation of scope, a simultaneous expansion and constriction in the soul, a clumsy sense of inadequacy, poverty of means, desperate limitation, and, at the same time, a craving for more, which demanded that “impractical” measures be taken. There was literally nothing to be done about this. Expansion toward what? What form would a higher development take? All you could say was that you accepted this condition as a gambler would accept absurd odds, as a patient accepted his rare disease. In a city of four million people, no more than a dozen had caught it. The only remedy for it was to read and write stories and novels.
—“The Jefferson Lectures”
1932
To Yetta Barshevsky
May 28, 1932 South Harvey, Michigan
RESOLUTION [scrawled on back of envelope]
My dear Yetta:
I know this letter will be unexpected, less unexpected of course than my impromptu departure, but nonetheless unexpected. Even I had not anticipated it. I had only time enough to snatch my bathing suit and several sheets of paper. The day’s events have left my mind in turmoil, but I take this opportunity to write to you, Yetta, to tell you that which has for weeks been gathering, fermenting in my breast, that which has been seething and boiling in me, and finding no expression in spontaneity. It is something, Yetta, that more through uncertainty and cowardice than anything else I have not been able to broach to you. True, I am a self-confessed coward. Cowards we are all intrinsically, but the justification of cowardice lies in the confession.
It is dark now and the lonely wind is making the trees softly whisper and rustle. Somewhere in the night a bird cries out to the wind. My brother in the next room snores softly, insistently. The country sleeps. The waves surge angrily at the house, they cannot reach it, they snarl and pull back. Over me the light swings up and back, up and back. It throws shadows on the paper, on my face. I am thinking, thinking, Yetta, drifting with night, with infinity, and all my thoughts are of you. But my thoughts of you are not altogether kind, they sting, they lash. Or shall we talk business?
You will think, perhaps, “Phrase-monger.” For yours is a Young Communist League mind. Or: “What can have gotten into solid, bovine Bellow?”
But all the time you will have a presentiment, and all the time you will pray. (For you are devout, Yetta.)
“Why does he write, why does not the fool wait until he comes back so I can intimidate him?”
I hate melodrama. The only thing that I hate more intensely than melodrama and spinach is myself. You think perhaps that I am insane? I am. But I have my pen; I am in my element and I defy you. (Here there is a lengthy pause, a gusty sigh, and the indomitable Bellow rolls on in all his fullness and strength.)
As of late there has been a noticeable rift between us. It seems that the incorrigible [Nathan] Goldstein is uneasy. It seems that in the presence of others you are too lavish in your affection toward him. The situation indeed is critical. (By the way, Yetta, make it a point to show this to Goldstein.) Mind you, I make no sacrifice, no secret of giving you up. I abhor sacrifice and martyrdom—they are hypocrisy within hypocrisy—an expression of barbaric dogma and fanaticism—their motive, their masked motive, is a disgusting one—it is merely the hiding of the egoism of individualism.
So it is through mutual consent that we part. You to listen to Goldstein’s Marxian harangues with a half-feigned interest; I to loll on the bosoms of voluptuous time and space and stifle desire and hope. The Oriental, you know, is a fatalist. It is perhaps atavism that prompts me to say, “What is to be will be.” And so I am content. I have no regrets. For some time I will shroud myself in an injured reserve. Maybe I will find solace in the philosophic calm of the ascetic. Man ever seeks to justify his acts. To be a recluse is a justification of the wrongness of a right. In several weeks with a cynical droop to the lip and a weary eye on a sordid world, I the young idealist will lay his woes and his heart at Pearl’s feet. If she spurns them I will go home and write heart-rending poetry and play the violin. If not, I will lapse into a lethargic contentment that will last only as long as the love lasts. For love stupefies.
So I sever relations with you.
We may still be casual friends. But some day when I am in my dotage and you are many chinned and obese we may be reconciled. In the Interim be happy—if my notorious skepticism allows me, I too will endeavor to find contentment with Pearl.
So Yetta,
It is Good-bye—
You are at liberty to do as you like with this letter.
Evidently on holiday with one of his brothers, Bellow has just turned seventeen when he writes this, his earliest surviving letter. Nathan Goldstein would shortly marry Yetta. Following their divorce in the 1940s, Yetta would marry Max Shachtman. Pearl’s identity is untraced.
1937
To James T. Farrell
[n. d.] [Chicago]
Dear Mr. Farrell:
It may surprise you that the associate editor of the
Beacon
should be politically of a mind with you, but that is the case. I have asked Al Glotzer several times to write to you for me. I’m tired of asking him; I am quite sure he hasn’t written. And perhaps it would be a shame if he dissipated his Machiavellian genius in trivial correspondence.
Beacon
should be politically of a mind with you, but that is the case. I have asked Al Glotzer several times to write to you for me. I’m tired of asking him; I am quite sure he hasn’t written. And perhaps it would be a shame if he dissipated his Machiavellian genius in trivial correspondence.
If you will tell me why you have taken up with the magazine, and what you have gathered of [Sydney] Harris from his letters, and what your opinion is of the role of the magazine, and whether you think it can be useful, I for my part will undertake a long narrative of the whole venture and try to explain my position on it. I will try to give you an inkling of it now: Editorially I can’t push the magazine to the left because Harris is a shrewd, opportunistic bastard who won’t permit it. However, if we load the magazine with Bolshevik writers of national reputation, we can have Harris hanging on a ledge before long.
Already the Stalinites have excommunicated him and pronounced the magazine anathema. Jack Martin, local educational director of the C.P., wrote Harris a letter calling him a fascist record, agent of the Gestapo and a few other unoriginal things. It is peculiar how the Stalinites have lost central discipline by spreading themselves through liberal groups. They are scattered so widely that Martin’s dicta have not yet come to the ears of the ranks, and every day little fresh-faced YCL boy scouts come to ask space for the American Youth Congress or United Christian Youth meetings, space which Harris freely, even prodigally, gives.
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