Letters
Page 29
It wouldn’t do much good to see matters clearly. With the sharpest eyes in the world I’d see nothing but the stinking fog of falsehood. And I haven’t got the sharpest eyes in the world; I’m not superman but superidiot. Only a giant among idiots would marry Sondra and offer you friendship. God knows I am not stainless faultless Bellow. I leave infinities on every side to be desired. But love her as my wife? Love you as a friend? I might as well have gone to work for Ringling Brothers and been shot out of the cannon twice a day. At least they would have let me wear a costume.
Coventry, pal, is not the place.
To Richard Stern
February 27, 1961 [Rio Piedras]
Dear Dick:
Don’t worry about a thing. [Jules] Feiffer has all the wit, charm and pathos you could possibly want. I think this thing is going to go. For TNS however—well, we have to deal with eternities. World Pub. is so slow it takes four or five months after we’re done with the issue to manufacture; it’s a krikhik [64]—the word is Yiddish—schedule; two issues a year, and awfully frustrating. Chapter 1 of the new novel is very good, but so obviously part of a longer work we can’t take it.
I’ve been hammering at Herzog’s back for months, and have several hundred pages of narrative about as steady as the moon’s orbit. The whole now looks far different from what you saw, and that will look even more different in the end. It seems I used to work by adding steadily, and I now do it by adding and then boiling down. I know it sounds like cookery, but that’s what Plato said poetry was, one of the arts of flattery, like hairdressing and soup-making.
I’ll show up in Chicago towards the end of May, quite willing to talk. Even about Susan, if you like. I think by now I know her quite well. I can tell you more about her than most others can tell me. I shrink from marriage still, but not from Susan.
About May 29th, I think.
Meanwhile, give my best to Gay, to Shils, and to the kids. I’m sorry you didn’t get the Gug, but I think it’ll come one of these years. Keep after it.
À bientôt,
To Gregory Bellow
February [?], 1961 [Rio Piedras]
Dear Greg:
Your letter amazed me. What’s all this solemnity about honest men and faith and credit? I thought you were a socialist, for liberty and equality. It seems you really are a capitalist, all for the buck. Or do you think you’re saving your mother from my swindles, or protecting her from bankruptcy or starvation? What sort of nonsense is this? You have two parents. Both love you. The interests of both should be close to you. Both.
What is it that’s not rightfully mine—the alimony? Is it rightfully Anita’s? By what right? Because I injured her? But I’ve never billed her for the pain she caused me. Or is it a one-way street? This is money I work very hard for, for I am somewhat slipshod and incompetent about my earning, and inefficient. Normally (whatever that is—what’s normal with me?) I don’t mind too much. But I’ve had a difficult time. Don’t you know that? Really I’m so surprised at your failing to realize that I’ve had a hard time I’m tempted to laugh. After all, the difficulty and the weeping and all of it has involved you! And that’s really quite funny, don’t you think, that you should now be so indignant and send me boyscout messages about how a scout is honorable. But really, socialist to socialist, what’s the sense of alimony rain or shine? She has a job and a guaranteed income. I haven’t. She’s neither sick nor in dire need whereas I can without exaggeration claim I’ve had a wretched time. I don’t suppose you think the Sondra-Adam business was fun. And with the heartbreak of it went the expense. You can’t imagine how much it all costs to lose a wife and child. I’ve exhausted my credit. I owe Viking ten grand, and my English publisher eighteen hundred, and Sondra’s mother a thousand, and [Samuel S.] Goldberg, and taxes and so on and on and on. Wouldn’t it have been nice of Anita, who knew of these hardships, to let me off a bit and say, “See here, I know it’s rough. But though you’ve done me wrong I am not vengeful. You can start paying again when you’re able”? Now that would have been something like humane. I could have sworn socialists were a little like that. I must have been reading the wrong books. You may ask why, with these views of alimony, I ever consented to pay it. Well, I did it because Anita’s lawyer wouldn’t allow me to return from the West and reside in New York unless I agreed to the terms. So to be near you I agreed. And I was good about it for years and years. But now I’m on rather lean days, so you say, Take him to court. And she says, in sorrow, I can’t afford it. Not quite accurate, Greg. It would have cost her nothing if she were in the right. In that event I would have to pay the court costs, too. But she and I would have to submit statements of financial condition to the court, and perhaps the alimony might be taken away altogether. For my financial condition is pretty bad. Yes, it looks palmy. I earn six thousand here for the term, but I pay more than five thousand to Anita and Sondra, so one might say that I’ve come here to make that money. It only takes five months or so. But what do I do in June, Greg?
If you are, as you say, making a man of yourself you might think of the condition of another man, your father. Why does he do these things? Is he a lunatic? What’s the sense of those books he writes? Obviously my unreliable financial condition is related to the fact that I write books. And you might try thinking about this in terms other than the dollar. Those are blood cells in my eccentric veins, not dimes. It’s odd that I should have to persuade my son that I’m human. Fallible, silly, human, not altogether a waste of time. I’ll get by somehow—scrape by, steal by, squeak by. I always have. If I strike it rich, why, I’ll buy ice cream and Cadillacs for everybody. And then everyone will say how honest I am and your good opinion of me will return, and your faith in me. It’s all silly.
Your devoted
Papa
To Hymen Slate
March 1, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
Dear Slate—
It’s funny, but I had the same feeling about you, that you were more accessible and open to feeling. Under the leadership of Isaac and Abe [Kaufman] that was all the thing. It took twenty years to find out how odd everyone else was; and how much alike. In many ways the same person with different faces—a little more paranoid here, a little more depressed there. But how unlike what we thought then! I who was supposed to be worldly got my first glimpse of the world only a few years ago. And even Abe has become practical. When I was in Cambridge last year Jerry Lettwin who teaches at MIT told me that Abe was thin, quite a man about town, and no longer the old loon. Too bad, if true.
Your piece is already in proof and you should be getting a copy of TNS #3, and a small check. I hope it will encourage you to do more. You should, you know. You have a good voice or tone, and a lot of knowledge and ability. I’m not printing “Slate’s Proof ” for old time’s sake. And I’d be very careful ab’t firing the ambitions of any man past forty if I didn’t believe it would be quite a simple thing for him to do something good. I’m convinced it wouldn’t be too hard for you. Think about it.
Regards to Evelyn.
Best,
Around Hyde Park, social worker Hymen Slate was for many years a much-loved chess player and Socratic talker. He and Bellow had been classmates at Tuley High School.
To Keith Opdahl
March 12, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
Dear Mr. Opdahl:
Those are very stiff questions. One is always tempted to give a proper answer, the answer that wins the Bible. Of course the man of will is easier to see clearly, and seeing clearly is a sort of love, I suppose. It may be that Blake meant something of this sort when he spoke of cleansing the gates of perception. And the energetic, good or bad, make themselves more clearly seen. I can confess without much difficulty that, being a man who makes up his mind with slow pain, I admire those who know their minds. They may of course be dangerous, in that their decision will be not to love. But that doesn’t prevent me from loving them, or my more affectionate characters from doing so. The affectionate characters are stubbo
rn too, and go their own way. They have powerful will, and affection suits them because it removes obstacles and resistances. They have their own will to power, I’ve never been in any doubt about that. If they are not obviously selfish they are nonetheless greedy. Some sense of life acts through them, and that is their passion. To me their affectionate charm often appears a disguise. However, I wouldn’t argue any of these matters with you. I may well be wrong, but the drama and the comedy make that somewhat irrelevant. They are first, and the meanings are the comet’s tail—when there is a comet.
The Crab and the Butterfly depressed me terribly. It was too heavy, and I let it go and turned to Augie March instead.
Sincerely yours,
Keith Opdahl is the author of The Novels of Saul Bellow: An Introduction (1968).
To Edward Hoagland
March 13, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
Dear Mr. Hoagland,
I wonder why I found it hard to answer a letter which gave me so much pleasure. Perhaps I don’t know what to do with something that satisfies me so much. We all seem to be pretty poor about praise, about giving as well as receiving. Your letter shows you to be a bright exception in the giving at any rate. I hope you will be as good about taking it when your turn comes. I know from the two books and the one story I’ve read that it’s sure to come.
On the whole I think your judgment of what I’ve done is the one I would give myself. Oddly enough, I do feel extraordinarily locked up, and some of my books, especially Augie March, are written in a jail-breaking spirit. And most prison breaks, like most revolutions, are unsuccessful. After I had written The Victim, I felt the limitation of conventional despair and disappointment and all the rest of it, of that romanticism which makes excessive and ridiculous demands for the individual and seems ignorant of what there really is to ask for. In the excitement of freeing myself, I think I went too far. I would go about it differently now. As for Henderson, I understand it least of all my books. Oh, I can tell you in detail what I was after, but I’m quite blind to the whole. I can identify the passages in which I was completing my stride, hitting home. However, it is a queer book. So is the one I’m at work on now, of which I haven’t found the center. I don’t seem to have connected this time either. Not as clearly as one should. I want to do the thing purely a few times before I stop. [ . . . ]
I hope you will have something to offer The Noble Savage soon. We’re making up the fourth number now and we have plenty of space. Perhaps you have a story for us, or a personal essay. I’d be happy to see you write something—something personal about New York. That kind of thing is so seldom done. You could do it well.
Sincerely,
Edward Hoagland (born 1932) is an American novelist and major essayist, particularly admired for his nature writing in such collections as The Peacock’s Tale (1965) and The Courage of Turtles (1971).
To Louis Gallo
April 4, 1961 [Rio Piedras]
Dear Lou—
You don’t write letters easy to answer. One wants to—oh yes, indeed one does—but there’s always the temptation to say, “See the collected works, vol. so and so.” I’m writing a book in which I want to try my strength against some of these same questions. And argument really means nothing. That’s for philosophers. Writers can only try to demonstrate in close detail without opinion. You may have the upper hand in argument. You may in fact have it in earnest truth as well. I don’t know. I take you to be relentlessly kicking a way through a good many lies. The signs are there, especially in your letters and in the article on readers, which greatly impressed me.
And I suppose it doesn’t greatly matter what one says in the way of position-taking. In art the real proofs are overwhelmingly factual. I wouldn’t be caught dead with a Program for Life and Joy in my pocket. Or, as the new Administration has it, Energy and Fun, a Sense of Humor and all the rest of that. And the thing is mysteriously mixed with you, too, for at the same time that you say Nausea and Torture you show a knotty and bitter sense of comedy, and that, far more than the position, is what gets me. Yes, I know the position, of course. My God! how wouldn’t I know it? I never lived in my mother’s basement and used her washing machine, but that’s only a detail. The rest, from direct and concentrated experience, is very familiar to me too. I’ve never known what it was to lead an accepted life. But the non-accepted life has its own terrible dangers, and horrible corruptions as you know lie in wait for the solitary resister. A writer has his choice in America of a grand variety of hells. Yours happens to suit my own taste. But I am well aware that with a good projector one can make one’s small troubled light cover the heavens, and one’s own spindling sticks can look like the ruggedest of all crosses.
You’ll find the book I’m writing now less “tender,” “tolerant,” etc. When a writer has such feelings, however, it’s his business to lead them all into the hottest fire. He must expose them to the most destructive opposites he can find and, if he wishes to be tender, confront the murderer’s face. The converse, however, is equally true, for writers who believe there is a Sargasso of vomit into which we must drift are obliged to confront beauty. To deny that, you would have to deny your instincts as a writer.
Well, all right, then. [ . . . ]
Best,
To Pascal Covici
May 9, 1961 [Rio Piedras]
Dear Pat:
Thanks. I was glad to get your letter, of course, and I re-read the stuff and agree it’s not half bad, but it’ll need a lot of work yet because it can’t decide whether it’s funny or grim. It will need a thinning in the places where the thought is concentrated. It’s an old problem with me. Maybe I’ll get all the philosophy out of my system for good, now. This is the first time I’ve really shown my hand—my face, if you prefer—in any book. But we’ll talk about that next week. I’m packing now and sweating over the papers and tickets and grades. I hear from Susie that you’re well and enjoy her cooking.
Give my special love to Dorothy.
As ever,
To Susan Glassman
[n.d.,] [Rio Piedras]
Now sweetheart, don’t bring any coats and sweaters, only ultra-summery things. Matters like Kosher salami are optional. I’m doing fine. I’m beginning not to be so democratically humble ab’t myself. It’s me—Bellow!!! I am on loan, or lend-lease, to myself from God. And a rather extraordinary piece of business.
Come, as Shelley said to the night, soon—soon!
To Susan Glassman
[n.d.] [Rio Piedras]
[ . . . ] I eat very little since you’ve gone, and I read and write a great deal. Hardly any point in going to Luquillo alone. I read the Old Testament and prophets, and work with Herzog. He is doing beautifully and that’s some comfort. First I missed you hungrily, and now I’m more peaceful, and in about ten days I’ll have gotten every advantage of solitude and I’ll have a head full of ache and a void at heart.
[ . . . ] And I went to see The Misfits. Oy! Philosophy, thy name is not Miller.
Love and kisses,
To Susan Glassman
[n.d.] [ Rio Piedras]
My dearest Doll:
Here are twenty pages more, making forty this week since the jet took you from me. Signs of virtue and happiness. I live on broiled meat and salt-pills and my brains and insides go around at high speed. Have you ever visited a clothing factory, heard the sewing machines rrrrhhhahhhrrr with the loudness in the middle of the phrase? I feel like that myself, like the operator sliding in the cloth. Only the machinery is internal and the seams never end. Yesterday I went to Luquillo at last, and that was fine, but then the clouds came out and I drove home. In the Studebaker now. The Volks lost six quarts of oil in one week, and I left it in the Botsfords’ shop in San Lorenzo. Keith got back early last week. We met for dinner and had some straight talk, which he seems to revel in. He’d rather have me tell him the truth than anyone I ever saw. It isn’t always pleasant but then it’s about him and that’s good, glorious. I’m that way myself, as you k
now.
I didn’t like your downcast letter very much, and putting it together with your decision not to go to Chicago I attributed it to the conversation you must have had with home when you got back. Did your mother give you a hard time on the phone? I hope that isn’t so, but only the normal swing from excitement and euphoria at coming in safe to New York, and being in your own place, and the friends and the glamour after all of the Big Town, to solitude again, and bitter thoughts. But that’s altogether the normal course you should have run. It can’t hurt, I hear, to take this Librium. Keith was on it, too. He admits now to having had a little nervous breakdown. Probably his psychiatrist in NYC tells him so. He has a tailor in London and a psychiatrist in NYC on the same standby-footing. Ah, he’s a glorious and funny man.
In all the island only I am steadily at work.
Love and good cheer,
To Susan Glassman
[n.d.] [Rio Piedras]
Ay Susannah! Herzog keeps rippling towards the old estuary, almost to page two hundred. The rapidity frees me somewhat, keeps me from lingering on my favorite themes or poisons. Later, later! Onwards, onwards. I want to end standing on my head like Hippocleides on the banquet table [ . . . ] The weather is not too keen, to touch on other matters, the cars work worse and worse. I took a lady to dinner who came introduced by my oldest brother. She turned out to be the complete rich neurotic. I mean complete. A woman waits for me, as Walt Whitman started to say; she contains everything, nothing neurotic is lacking. In one respect dinner was rewarding. She is a lobbyist for good causes, and she told me how a Senator tried to lay her in the Capitol during a roll-call vote. She had come to see that he voted, kept his word. His instincts were far better. He wanted to make her drunk in his private office. She said, “Only after the vote.” Only the brave deserve the fair! What a world! My only vote, Dolly, I cast for beautiful you, to the tune of Gaudeamus Igitur [65]. You are right about these marriage-business alliances, of course, but I suppose this represents the efforts of people who have given up the love-quest to find a reason for continuing together. As such, the love-quest certainly deserves to be tabled, shelved, stored. As romanticism, I mean, or even sexual romanticism of the Reich kind. One swings from shallowness of one sort to shallowness of another, and from misery to misery. But people who see God in one another . . . aren’t on the make in NYC.