Letters

by Saul Bellow

  Of course I should write to you, my conscience is severely troubled. I think of you continually and I seem to have translated “thinking about” into communication. Which means that civilization has fallen into solipsism. I assume there are two kinds of solipsism—restful and busy. Busyness quickly betrays you to barbarism. What makes me so busy? “My hasting days fly on in full career.” (J. Milton, aged twenty-three.) I have X-plus pages to write and I do it under the shadowy threat of “too late.” So . . . I am trying to meet a deadline imposed by a contract that I signed in order to spur myself to work more quickly. But I haven’t got the energy I once had. Well into my late sixties I could work all day long. Now I fold at one o’clock. Most days I can’t do without a siesta. I get out of bed and try to wake up. I ride the bike or swim in the pond. After such activities I have to rest again. It’s evening, it’s dinnertime. Nine-tenths of what I should have done it now seems too late to do: I protect myself from anxiety by opening some book or other; I catch up on the newspapers. I discover the moose population has increased, and that animals in the road cause more and more fatal accidents. I water the garden and promise myself to do better tomorrow.

  I read your story, as I read all your stories. They come straight out of your feelings and go directly into my own. They please me even when I have reservations about them. In your latest it seems to me that you say more than is necessary about Entropy. Your story stands on its own without physics or philosophy. Exceptions to entropy only signify exceptions to death. Life defies entropy as it does the laws of gravity. It wasn’t quite clear to me why the Baroness Dinesen-Blixen was in the story. She’s always been a bit too trendy for me. I like most of her stories, but dislike the cult that has formed around her. What’s high in your story is the human quality, the instant conviction of significance in the writer and the people he associates with. What brings them to life is your warmth.

  The Doubleday complete Conrad should be sea-borne cargo by now. Let’s hope the books arrive in time for your next birthday. Meanwhile since that good-bad magazine Encounter has gone out of business without reimbursement to disappointed subscribers, Janis and I are taking out a subscription to The Economist in your name. It’s a business magazine, true, but then the planet now is overwhelmingly business. In the latest issue I learned why the Quebecois consider themselves sound enough financially to go it alone. Not the most interesting subject, but simply and sharply described. Good for my mind to see the world handled so neatly week after week. The mental level is high-average and generally dependable. And at least it’s not mainly propaganda like The New Yorker.

  Bostonia, by the way, has survived its crisis and will be published as a quarterly. Good for our side. Your last piece there was terrific. This letter was dictated to Janis and contains love from both of us to a dear friend.

  (I promise to write oftener.)

  To Florence Rubenfeld

  July 15, 1991 W. Brattleboro, Vermont

  Dear Ms. Rubenfeld:

  My personal connections with Clem[ent Greenberg] were severed during WWII. I reviewed some books for him at Commentary and I followed his career, naturally, at two or three removes, when he was Helen Frankenthaler’s coach, trainer and spiritual counselor. I last saw him at a luncheon in his honor given by the Arts Club of Chicago. He did not mortally wound me by cutting me dead. Seated at a neighboring table, he turned his back. There was a dish of fruit before me and I got his attention by throwing grapes at him. When he could no longer ignore me (I am a fair shot with a grape) he turned round and declared: “I never did like you.” Now Proust or Joyce could have disabled me but Clem simply didn’t have the weight. I went home feeling jolly, pleased with myself. [ . . . ]

  Too bad that Sidney Hook has gone to his reward. He held sharp views on Clem’s wartime politics.

  Sincerely yours,

  Florence Rubenfeld was writing Clement Greenberg: A Life, which would appear in 1998.

  To Florence Rubenfeld

  August 18, 1991 W. Brattleboro

  Dear Ms. Rubenfeld:

  I’ve never been known to pull practical jokes and have no previous knowledge of the Trilling caper. I can see why Diana might think me to be the perpetrator. Norman [Podhoretz] was Lionel’s protégé and Norman had tried to do me in [with a negative review of Augie March]. He says as much himself in his autobiography. It did seem that Lionel was playing a double game since he had praised the very same book extravagantly [in The Griffin]. He and I had had a sharp exchange about this, but it never occurred to me to make alarming telephone calls.

  It’s true I am a fairly gifted mimic, and among my friends in the Village I may have spoofed Lionel—no great achievement since he had such conspicuous mannerisms. But it had never crossed my mind to call him or molest Clem. [ . . . ]

  Diana will never replace Agatha Christie.

  All best,

  Diana Trilling apparently believed that in 1953 Bellow had placed crank calls in which he mimicked her husband’s voice.

  To Karl Shapiro

  August 21, 1991 W. Brattleboro

  Dear Karl,

  As I write this summer’s book, I pray continually that I am not letting Sophie down. She told me that last summer’s story, “Something to Remember Me By,” would be a hard act to follow. She was right. Now that I draw a diagram of the dilemma it clarifies the difficulty: How to write a novel with the precision necessary to write a short story? She will let me know whether I have done it satisfactorily, but waiting for judgment day naturally makes me anxious. I have to reconcile the habits developed in two different kinds of writing. I have never belonged to any church and Sophie is as close as I have ever come to the idea of papal infallibility.

  Otherwise things continue to go on as they have gone on for decades now. In literature the lowing herd is leaving the lea and darkness falls on the enterprise to which you and I have devoted our lives. I feel like somebody who took holy orders about forty years before young Nietzsche showed that God was dead. I still believe we did the right thing, and if we were mistaken we made our mistakes in the best style available and have more class in defeat than any of our enemies. Does this sound a little bit like the noble soldier of the Confederacy reflecting on the doom of the victorious North? [ . . . ]

  Lots of love from your friend,

  To Jeff Wheelwright

  August 28, 1991 Chicago

  Dear Mr. Wheelwright:

  In denying that Herzog was a manic depressive I was merely protecting him. I didn’t want him pushed into a clinical category. I had known a genuine manic depressive, my dear friend the late Delmore Schwartz. Herzog was not nearly so volcanic and demonic a personality.

  Best wishes,

  To Virginia Dajani

  September 11, 1991 W. Brattleboro, Vermont

  Dear Virginia:

  In fairness to Isaac Singer I suggest that you ask another member of the Academy for a tribute. Although I admired his work greatly (his character somewhat less), he didn’t much care for me and his spirit I think would be more comfortable with a tribute from a writer with whom he enjoyed better relations.

  Sincerely yours,

  Isaac Bashevis Singer had died on July 24.

  To George Sarant

  September 21, 1991 W. Brattleboro

  Dear George:

  A very brief note: Somehow I never find time enough to do what I intend to do. Maybe I’m trying to dope out a way to extend the life span. Not merely “the vegetable span.” I need to stay alive in order to get certain things done—and when I am halfway through some essential project I find that something else is even more essential, and then I pursue the more essential, etc.

  One of my summer projects was to write you a long letter of the most essential kind, but the right moment never came. I’m sure it will come very soon.

  One piece of knowledge about sons and fathers I can share with you now and that is that not all the sons want me to describe their fathers to them. The less they hear from me about Papa—or Mam
a—the better they like it.

  With much love,

  1992

  To Stanley Elkin

  January 27, 1992 Chicago

  Dear Stanley—

  My dilatory ways.

  I’ve often wanted to write to you to say how much I like your books. We had one sketchy meeting at a silly event in St. Louis. The USA has no expression like “cher maître.” And I can’t think of any approximate equivalent. What I have to say is simply that you’re the real thing—I should have written this to you long ago. But that’s how lives are lived—one aimless good intention after another, impulses buried and occasions missed or frittered away.

  Yours with best wishes,

  To François Furet

  February 2, 1992 Chicago

  Dear François,

  What a pity I couldn’t attend the last faculty meeting. I should have liked at least to have been there in spirit, haunting the walls. Nasty Shils the ultimate Dickensian funny monster giving his wickedest performance. Bloom is mad with delight, beside himself when he describes the scene. David Grene once said that Edward was an unlanced boil (un furoncle, to you).

  I like to have my joke first, that’s characteristic of me, but to speak seriously I’m infinitely grateful to you for replying to Edward so simply, so properly. Bloom tells me, and I believe him completely, that you spoke with dignity and severity, and I am doubly grateful not only because you checked him but because you made it clear that the Committee will not tolerate his macabre shenanigans.

  A kind friend has sent me Zazie dans le Métro. May I ask for your help with the argot?

  With warm regards to you and Debbie,

  François Furet (1927-97), leading French historian, was professor at the École des hautes études and chairman of the Committee on Social Thought at University of Chicago. A member of the Académie Française, he was the author of several important books on the French Revolution as well as Le passé d’une illusion: essai sur l’idée communiste au XXe siècle (1995).

  To Ruth Wisse

  February 20, 1992 Chicago

  Dear Ruth,

  A belated memo: We were happy to see your daughter in Jerusalem. She seems to have matured, blossomed with tremendous speed. We had seen her only once before, at your dinner, and although she was clearly intelligent and charming, she was very much the college girl and not at all the worldly young person who came to take tea with us at the Mishkenot. I would class her with [Nathan] Sharansky and a handful of other Jerusalemites who made the trip worthwhile. Kollek should be listed in the same category. The more I learn about him the more he intrigues me—a phenomenal personality. And yes, I know all about Teddy the schemer, finagler and arranger. With all his less-than-admirable qualities, he towers over most of the political figures I have known.

  Running my eye over the foregoing, I can’t understand how I’ve gotten into so many topics I never meant to bring up. I wasn’t entirely myself in December. Janis and I had gone to Italy first. I had to perform before a large audience in Florence. As often happens, I was obliged to rewrite my talk in the hotel room. The whole thing wore me down and we went to Israel to recover. Once out of Jerusalem, we had to re-book ourselves directly to Chicago about ten days earlier than planned. When I got back home, I climbed into bed and stayed there for a couple of weeks. Nothing more serious than fatigue, from which I have now recovered. We found your letter waiting.

  Abby told us that you were considering a move to Harvard. [ . . . ] I think you would be happy in Cambridge. And you wouldn’t need to be homesick for Montreal. You can buy anything you need in the way of Jewish food on Harvard Street in Brookline.

  Janis and I hope to see you again this coming summer.

  Yours affectionately,

  To John Auerbach

  March 2, 1992 Chicago

  Dear John—

  Returning to Chicago, I took to my bed for some weeks—most of January—with accumulated fatigue. Then there were more weeks of testing—medical knocking and rapping, blood tests and tubes in the esophagus, prostate examinations. From all this I came out relatively clean. An increase in quinine doses and a new prescription for reading glasses. They (the doctors) say, “You’re in good condition,” and they add, “for a man of your age.”

  I didn’t mind the hospitals, really. I liked the company in the clinics—one gets to meet people, instead of reading about them. What a freaky lot we are; everybody entertaining everybody else. This has gotten even to the top of the mafia—Gotti clearly behaves at his trial like Marlon Brando. And of course the politicians at this season are all playing “Candidates.” In the slums the kids are killing one another with “cheap” handguns. And in the courts, people convicted of murder have filed “abuse” suits against the police. Chicago has a few of these cases going at this hour.

  On the air and in the papers the future of the US is debated, some arguing that we will soon belong to the Third World. The Japanese and the Germans are ahead of us. The President is weak and vain, [Pat] Buchanan is not so much a fascist as a parochial pool-parlor punk. And not even the cemeteries are tranquil. A shopping mall has been “developed” near the graves of my parents, and the loudspeakers broadcast rock music day and night.

  You mustn’t think I’m depressed—I’m only down at the moment. Writing to dear friends whom I would love to see every day makes me a little melancholy.

  You ought to do a little more with the pages you recently sent—but of course you’re doing what you can do, and that little is better than this large output from the dozens, scores, hundreds who fill up the magazines and fight for space on the airport book racks.

  Hug Nola for me.

  Love,

  Janis sends affectionate regards.

  To Stanley Elkin

  March 12, 1992 Chicago

  Dear Stanley:

  As pen pals we are released from formalities. Henceforth, first names.

  When I was young I used to correspond actively with Isaac Rosenfeld and other friends. He died in 1956, and several more went in the same decade, and somehow I lost the habit of writing long personal letters—a sad fact I only now begin to understand. It wasn’t that I ran out of friendships altogether. But habits changed. No more romantic outpourings. We were so Russian, as adolescents, and perhaps we were also practicing to be writers. Isaac himself made me conscious of this. When he moved to New York I wrote almost weekly from Chicago. Then, years later, he told me one day, “I hope you don’t mind, but when we moved from the West Side” (to the Village, naturally) “I threw away all your letters.” And he made it clear that he meant to shock me, implying that I would feel this to be a great loss to literary history. I felt nothing of the sort. I was rid of a future embarrassment.

  But it wasn’t a good thing to be cured of—the habit of correspondence, I mean. I’m aware that important ground was lost. One way or another it happened to most of the people I knew—a dying back into private consciousness and a kind of miserliness. You begin to work with proxies whom you’ve appointed yourself.

  I suppose the letters in Herzog reflect this solipsistic condition: how and why intimacies die and the insanity of “going public” that results. With me, for a long time, it’s been fiction or nothing. So is it too late to mend? (A Victorian Christian question.)

  Having read you, I’m certain that you’re free from this ailment or incapacity. You’re able to “say it all.” Nobody else is so full, fluent and open. In this department it’s you who are the cher maître.

  To William Kennedy

  May 6, 1992 [Chicago]

  Dear Bill—

  I’m glad you turned again to the family theme—you’re always at your best with the Phelans. I’m tempted to speculate that our family-less, out-of-the-void colleagues are anti-family on grounds of ideology (some from the Marxian, some from the Existentialist side). That’s okay for people who really come out of the void [ . . . ], but for the majority it’s an affectation—a put-on.

  For the likes of us, with
powerful early connections—well, we can say no to those connections. Whether it’s yes or no we have to live with them openly. Joyce, who was so cold to his Dublin family (perhaps to his Paris family as well), has Bloom pining for his dead little boy, his suicided father. Cruel and kinky-real, but not without curious feelings. If Joyce had been born in the fields, under a cabbage leaf (as Samuel Butler would have preferred to enter life) there w’d have been no Ulysses.

  With this elaborate preface: I liked Old Bones a lot. I read it in one shot, and it did me a world of good.

  Yours ever,

  To John Auerbach

  June 23, 1992 W. Brattleboro

  Dear John:

  [ . . . ] At six I watch the news. That doesn’t do much for me. I’m as listless as the rest of the country. Bush has nothing to give or say, and neither do I. Indignation gives me a bit of energy—riots in L.A., looting even in Chicago, idiocy on TV, cowardice in the newspapers, stupidity in government. The free-market economic theorists have done too well, they’ve taught the country that laissez-faire won the Cold War. Furthermore, I believe, people are terrified of the computers that have transformed the supporting structure. They’re terrified lest computer error wipe out their savings, their pensions, their insurance—the computerized bureaucracy frightens them to death. Make inquiries when anything goes wrong and you can’t get a human response—you get printouts or electronic voices. [Ross] Perot made his billions in government contracts, computerizing Medicare or Medicaid, and this weak-minded little man is believed to be a wizard. Nobody yet has said this publicly—you’re getting a special interpretation from me. Perot has proposed to put democracy on an electronic footing. Push a button to make your views known and we won’t need a Congress. If the President displeases the majority, an instant plebiscite will force him to step down. Therefore, we won’t need a constitution, nor a Supreme Court to interpret it. Only technicians.