Letters of E. B. White
Page 69
Yrs,
Andy
To MILTON GREENSTEIN
[North Brooklin, Maine]
November 17, 1970
Dear Milt:
It was good to talk to you. I have signed the four copies of the “Charlotte’s Web” agreement with Sagittarius, and they are enclosed. Thanks for all your work and for straightening me out last night on the phone, and may good luck go with both of us. And send me a bill. This involves a lot of money, so make the bill in proportion—or, as we writers would say, big.
The director, Gene Deitch, who was here Sunday and whom I got on with fine, listened to a fragment of my recording of the book, and it is possible that he may decide to use my voice in narration. Deitch is American-born, but lives in Prague with a Czech wife and children. He has had 25 years in cartoon film production, worked with UPA, and has scooped up many honors in his field. He did two of the three Bemelmans “Madeline” shorts. I saw the first one and it was beautiful. I feel fairly happy about Deitch—happy as I can ever be in never-never land, which still gives me the shakes.
Yrs,
Andy
To HARRY CLOUDMAN
North Brooklin, Maine
19 November 1970
Dear Harry:
Thanks for your note carrying the sad news. I was aware that Jack [Case] was ailing, but I failed to see the notice of his death in the Times. He was a lovely fellow and I felt good working with him. The letter he wrote me that started the whole thing off was a model of editorial seduction, in the best tradition. I am glad I was seduced and glad that the book did not let Jack down.
Off and on, in recent years, I have been asked by him to bring the book up to date. I always replied, saying that I would and stalling for time. I feel guilty that I’ve failed to come up with anything.
Yrs,
Andy
To PHILIP BOOTH
North Brooklin, Maine
22 November 1970
Dear Phil:
Thank you for “Margins” and for your inscription. They are lovely poems, and I am late in acknowledging them, but when it comes to poetry I take my own sweet time and allow myself no more than one poem a day. A good poem is like an anchovy: it makes you want another right away and pretty soon the tin is empty and you have a bellyache or a small bone in your throat or both.
Being a halfway man myself and never quite sure where I am, I liked particularly your first long poem, from a distant land, with its steady rhythms and memorable lines. And I liked “Nightsong,” and many others. I can’t criticize poetry, any more than I can dissect miracles, so I will fall back on what a little girl told her father. The poor guy was trying to write a review of my recent book for Down East Magazine and in desperation put the matter up to his 6-year-old daughter, who cleared the whole business up by saying, “It’s a good story because I like it.” Your poems are good because I like them.
We’ve had a mild and rather wet fall. I had my last sail in Martha on a late October afternoon. The morning had been bright and windless, but after lunch a good breeze came in from the west and although it was cold on the water I took off and beat up the Reach till I closed with the Deer Isle shore, then turned tail and got warm by running back to the Harbor—a fine ending to a slim season for me.
Joe is busy laying the keel for a ketch for Blue Hill’s insurance magnate, Merle Grindle. The yard is crowded and busy. He (Joe) was here a few minutes ago, and sends his best. Thanks again for the book.
Yrs,
Andy White
To STANTON WATERMAN
North Brooklin, Maine
December 30, 1970
Dear Stan:
Thanks so much for sending me the clipping from the Monitor. It’s a very good editorial, I think, on our vanishing humorist. Sid’s [Perelman’s] marathon departure from these shores reminded me of the Gilbert and Sullivan line—“But you don’t go.”
It seems to me that if a man decides to shake the dust of America and go somewhere else, he would be smart to sneak away with the least possible noise. Then, if he later changes his mind and wants to return to his native land, he can do it without incurring the gibes and jeers of the populace. (“What are you doing here?”) I liked the sentence in the Monitor piece, “. . .an expatriate travels not to find a new home but a new self.” A sound reflection.
Nothing that England can offer can match the beauty of the Great Snowfall of Christmas 1970 in Maine. We have more snow here in Brooklin than they have on television, where it snows almost continuously from December 1 to January 1. Christmas Eve was an exciting time—the snow blowing and drifting, the town plows barely visible as they came winking along in the dusk, hurling snow high in the air and effectively plugging up the driveways of one and all, so that when Christmas Day dawned, the highway was a clear open track between high white walls—a track to which nobody could gain access because his car had been effectively sealed in by the bravery and pluck of the tireless plowmen. Long before Christmas the snowdrifts in my barnyard topped the fence so the geese could simply walk out to freedom on the snow. And the pink snow-fence in our north field, normally four feet high, now shows up as a tiny four-inch fence such as you might put around a bed of spring flowers to discourage short-legged dogs.
Your description of the reading of “Charlotte’s Web” at your house was convincing but did not in any way mitigate my disappointment in the whole business. The voice should have been Susy’s, and I think it would have been if I had been present in Boston to get a scissors-hold on Berk so that she could have done her reading without interference from him. I feel terrible about the whole episode. I heard some of the Susanna Waterman tape and the voice came through just as I hoped it would. All it needed was a free rein, and that, I gather, is what it didn’t get.
I’m sick abed today with a fierce attack of the Uncommon Cold. If this letter is overlong and rambling it is because I can’t write short letters when in extremis.
Lots of love to you both from K and me, and all the best for the New Year.
Yrs,
Andy
XIV
IN THE LEE OF THE BARN
1971–1976
* * *
• In 1971, prodded by his friend Reginald Allen, White adapted The Trumpet of the Swan for a children’s concert, compressing the story into a small fragment but incorporating Sam Beaver’s poem about the zoo. Benjamin Lees wrote the score. The Philadelphia Orchestra performed it on May 13, 1972, and it has had a number of subsequent performances by other groups.
To REGINALD ALLEN
[North Brooklin, Maine]
January 2, 1971
Dear Reggie:
We’re gradually digging out, from under the great snows and the weight of bad health. I’m ready and eager to go to work on the Philadelphia Orchestra script if you still think the idea has possibilities and would be acceptable if properly constructed. I have some questions.
1. Is it your idea that the “brief narrative” should tell, in few words, the story of Louis and Serena and Sam? Or should it be much simpler than that? And would it be something like the narrative in “Peter and the Wolf,” with musical accompaniment illustrating and heightening the words?
2. You speak of a 12-minute limitation. Does that include the time that Sam Beaver’s poem would require? In other words, is 12 minutes the outside limit into which everything must fit?
3. Mr. Smith’s letter says: “Such a work (no longer than 12 minutes) could easily be published, and would be performable in all parts of the civilized globe, etc . . .” In short, a “property” would be created, publication would ensue, and money would change hands. This compels me to inquire, before getting involved in this lark, what sort of setup do you envision? Whose property is it? Yours? Mine? The composer’s? All three of us together? I ask, not because I give a damn but only because, as one of the characters in my book remarks, anything that involves money is complex, and my dream (unfulfilled) is to keep my life simple. I have never had any experience in the
great world of music and symphony orchestras and concerts for which admission is charged, and I don’t want to blunder into it without knowing in a general way where I am headed and what kind of trouble I am about to get into. Do I have to join ASCAP, and if so, are the rites of initiation very embarrassing to an old man? I don’t even know what ASCAP stands for. Just the word ASCAP scares me. Very frightening word.
I am, of course, delighted that the Philadelphia Orchestra Association has taken notice of “The Trumpet of the Swan”; the whole idea sounds great to me, and I feel indebted to you for dreaming it up. Imagine me, sitting down there in my boathouse a year and a half ago, composing the lines of Sam Beaver’s poem and not having the slightest inkling that the Philadelphia Orchestra was tuning up onstage. What a life I lead! How merry! How innocent! How nutty!
My bird life, by the way, intensified with the recent storms. I had a catbird hanging around here all fall in the bittersweet vine on the roof of my woodshed. (There were also four robins, rifling the vine, getting stoned on the berries.) One day, shortly before Christmas, after a bitter night, I found the catbird belly up in the snow by our kitchen porch, guarded by Susy, my terrier. We brought her indoors, thawed her out, and I placed her in a cage in the plant room, fed her diced apple and beef stew, and she made a remarkable recovery and became very vigorous and pretty. But then one day I noticed that the toes of both feet were curled up, and she could not hang on to a perch. So I phoned Chandler Richmond in Ellsworth, told him the tale, and he said, “Bring her over—I have a lot of birds here in my cellar.”1 This I did. I’ve had no report as yet about her progress. I assumed that the curled toes meant that her feet had been frozen, but Richmond said he thought it was more likely a pesticide calamity and that he would massage the feet. There’s a man for you—down cellar on bitter winter nights, massaging a catbird’s toes! I don’t know why I keep referring to this bird as “she.” The sexes are alike, and I doubt that anybody can tell a boy catbird from a girl catbird unless he happens to see them coupling. But I hope “she” survives this winter and returns to restore the earth come spring.
We had three storms in a great rush, neatly spaced, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The result is sensational. The mouth of my main driveway was so plugged I had to hire a loader to lift the snow and carry it across the highway and dump it into the field. There simply was no place to put it on this side of the road.
Yrs,
Andy
To GENE DEITCH
North Brooklin
January 12 [1971]
Dear Gene:
It was generous of you to send me such a detailed report of your scheme for the picture. This afternoon I sent you a few more photographs—they were taken in Canada, but they are close to New England in form and spirit.
You said in your letter (about my script) “how I wish I had the whole thing.” You have everything I wrote; there wasn’t any more.
I’ve studied your letter very carefully and find myself in sympathy, or agreement, with most of it. I do hope, though, that you are not planning to turn “Charlotte’s Web” into a moral tale. It is not that at all. It is, I think, an appreciative story, and there is quite a difference. It celebrates life, the seasons, the goodness of the barn, the beauty of the world, the glory of everything. But it is essentially amoral, because animals are essentially amoral, and I respect them, and I think this respect is implicit in the tale. I discovered, quite by accident, that reality and fantasy make good bedfellows. I discovered that there was no need to tamper in any way with the habits and characteristics of spiders, pigs, geese, and rats. No “motivation” is needed if you remain true to life and true to the spirit of fantasy. I would hate to see Charlotte turned into a “dedicated” spider: she is, if anything, more the Mehitabel type—toujours gai. She is also a New Englander, precise and disciplined. She does what she does. Perhaps she is magnifying herself by her devotion to another, but essentially she is just a trapper. . . .
As for Templeton, he’s an old acquaintance and I know him well. He starts as a rat and he ends as a rat—the perfect opportunist and a great gourmand. I devoutly hope that you are not planning to elevate Templeton to sainthood. . . .
An aura of magic is essential, because this is a magical happening. Much can be done by music of the right kind, as when the moment arrives when communication takes place between the little girl and the animals in the barn cellar. This is truly a magical moment and should be so marked by the music. (I hear it as a sort of thrumming, brooding sound, like the sound of crickets in the fall, or katydids, or cicadas. It should be a haunting, quiet, steady sound—subdued and repetitive.)
Even more can be done by words, if you are able to use them. (You’ll have to forgive me for being a word man, but that’s what I am.)
In writing of a spider, I did not make the spider adapt her ways to my scheme. I spent a year studying spiders before I ever started writing the book. In this, I think I found the key to the story. I hope you will, in your own medium, be true to Charlotte and to nature in general. My feeling about animals is just the opposite of Disney’s. He made them dance to his tune and came up with some great creations, like Donald Duck. I preferred to dance to their tune and came up with Charlotte and Wilbur. It would be futile and unfair to compare the two approaches, but you are stuck with my scheme and will probably come out better if you go along with it. Both techniques are all right, each in its own way, but I have a strong feeling that you can’t mix them. It just comes natural to me to keep animals pure and not distort them or take advantage of them.
Interdependence? I agree that the film should be a paean to life, a hymn to the barn, an acceptance of dung. But I think it would be quite untrue to suggest that barnyard creatures are dependent on each other. The barn is a community of rugged individualists, everybody mildly suspicious of everybody else, including me. Friendships sometimes develop, as between a goat and a horse, but there is no sense of true community or cooperation. Heaven forfend! Joy of life, yes. Tolerance of other cultures, yes. Community, no.
I just want to add that there is no symbolism in “Charlotte’s Web.” And there is no political meaning in the story. It is a straight report from the barn cellar, which I dearly love, having spent so many fine hours there, winter and summer, spring and fall, good times and bad times, with the garrulous geese, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, and the sameness of sheep.
K sends her best to you and Zdenka.
Yrs,
Andy
To REGINALD ALLEN
[North Brooklin, Maine]
[January 1971]
Dear Reggie:
I’m just in from tossing snow around, with scoop and shovel—we had another fall yesterday. When the great thaw comes in spring, the runoff should be sensational—like Cairo, Illinois, when the river rises.
Your letter was reassuring, and I’m sure we can set up something workable if I can produce a script that is satisfactory to the Orchestra. Seems to me whatever money may accrue should go to the Orchestra and the Zoo. The book and I will benefit from the publicity. (Incidentally, I just heard that “The Trumpet of the Swan” failed to win the Newbery Award, and that the award went to a book—hold your breath—called “The Summer of the Swan,” published by Viking. How’s that for a near miss? I just got one word wrong!). . . .
K is deep in seed catalogues, and most of the orders have gone out. I am studying my hatchery catalogue, making the hard choices among the breeds available: Sex-linked Hallcross, Silver Hallcross, Golden Buff, Heavy White Number 7, New Hampshire—Cornish Cross. The old gander has taken to fighting with the young gander. Can spring be far behind? Yes.
Yrs,
Andy
To GENE DEITCH
North Brooklin
February 3, 1971
Dear Gene:
. . . It is all very well to say that “Charlotte’s Web was a web of love which extended beyond her own lifespan.” But you should never lose sight of the fact that it was a web spu
n by a true arachnid, not by a de facto person. One has eight legs and has been around for an unbelievably long time on this earth; the other has two legs and has been around just long enough to raise a lot of hell, drain the swamps, and bring the planet to the verge of extinction.
. . . As you say, spiders do not talk to pigs, except in the world of the fable. But when conversation does finally take place, in that fabulous and pure world, it is indeed a spider who talks, indeed a pig. It is not a woman in spider’s clothing, or a boy in a pig’s skin. Be true to animals, O Good Gene, and you will live forever. When you enter the barn cellar, remove your hat. . . .
Yrs,
Andy
To GLUYAS WILLIAMS
North Brooklin, Maine
15 February 1971
Dear Gluyas:
You are absolutely right: it’s amazing how many errands can be postponed. If I had put off running that nutty errand last July 16th until I’d recovered from my drowsiness, I would not have crashed into a telephone pole and damn near broken my neck—which still gives me a lot of pain and other queer symptoms. With an automobile at hand, life tends to become just one silly errand after another. . . .
I am not used to celebrating Washington’s Birthday on the fifteenth of February, so I walked out early this morning and deposited a sackful of letters in our mailbox. Then had to return and retrieve them an hour later when it dawned on me that the mails weren’t moving today, even though George is still locked up tight in his mother’s womb and won’t emerge for a full week. This country is nuts. The only date I would like to see shifted is December 25, which I would like shifted to February 29, so that it occurs only once in every four years. This would have a profoundly beneficial effect on the nation and would set me back on an even course again.