Letters (40 page)
Authors: Saul Bellow
With best wishes,
Gordon Ray had succeeded Henry Allen Moe as president of The Guggenheim Foundation.
To Jonas Schwartz
October 19, 1960 Tivoli
Dear Jonas:
Wise of you to write. If I had the dough I’d be glad to accept your kind offer. But I can’t have checks bouncing, and right now I’m broke. The play is no more, and I owe Viking ten grand. I’ll find the dough and get it to you next month. As for Adam, he can always count on his monthly check. I love that boy, and I have a hunch that in the end that love is going to count for more in his life than the “protection” of lawyers and courts. But I don’t want to get into an argument with you; I’m fond of you and I think your heart is in the right place. The thing is over, though as a father I think you may understand that against my better judgment I sometimes long for Adam. I haven’t seen him since August nor have I heard about him. In October I got a wire from Sondra—SEND MONEY AT ONCE—giving me the new address. I had sent it to the old because I didn’t have the new. The money goes out regularly, and so do requests for one word of news about the child. I ask also for my recorders, one of them a gift from Isaac which I have kept and used for twenty years. No answer. Jonas, is it criminal of me that she decided to divorce me? Is it nothing that I’m the child’s father? Do I have to be slandered and smeared in Minneapolis? I know that you [ . . . ] think she’s a darling girl. I happen to think differently. But I don’t want to win an argument with you, vindicate myself or damn her. I want to make a deal to send the checks regularly on the 1st provided I get one postcard a month about Adam. I see no point in being unilaterally obliging. So the answer to your generous proposal is no, until such time as my feelings towards Adam are recognized. I am something more than an automatic source of checks. I am a
mensch
. I tried to be a husband to that poor castrating girl—an odd desire, but I had it. Now that I’ve lost it I am, on that side at least, a happier man. All right, no more infancy, no more self-pitying grief, but for every concession I make there’ll have to be a concession traded from here on in.
mensch
. I tried to be a husband to that poor castrating girl—an odd desire, but I had it. Now that I’ve lost it I am, on that side at least, a happier man. All right, no more infancy, no more self-pitying grief, but for every concession I make there’ll have to be a concession traded from here on in.
I’m glad your children are doing so well. They’re good girls, both of them, and do you [ . . . ] credit. Don’t worry about Berryman. He’s the soul of honor in everything that involves his responsibilities as a teacher, and I can assure you that Miriam [Schwartz’s daughter] will be treated fairly. Poets are a strange breed. Greet the bourgeoisie of Minneapolis for me. They all come to your cellar to drink your whiskey and enjoy your emotional outbursts.
I have arthritis of the cervical spine, and headaches, but apart from that I am in good heart and working well. I see Greg often. Last week he told me he had Sondra’s word for it that I am a rat but he loves me just the same.
Yours in Christ,
To Richard Stern
[n.d.] [Tivoli]
Dear Dick:
Herzog
has got me down. As sometimes happens by the hundredth page, my lack of planning, or the subconscious cunning, catch up with me, and so I’m back in Montreal in 1922, trying to get a drunk to bed and I’m not sure I’ll know what to do once he’s sleeping. God will provide. Consider the lilies of the field—do they write books? [ . . . ]
has got me down. As sometimes happens by the hundredth page, my lack of planning, or the subconscious cunning, catch up with me, and so I’m back in Montreal in 1922, trying to get a drunk to bed and I’m not sure I’ll know what to do once he’s sleeping. God will provide. Consider the lilies of the field—do they write books? [ . . . ]
Suddenly Greg, who is a junior, says he’d like to attend the U[niversity] of C[hicago]. He’s got good grades in everything except trigonometry, he tells me. As soon as the Bellows have learned to add a check at Walgreen’s they lose interest in mathematics. Are there any scholarships he could put in for? [ . . . ]
Yours from the perihelion of his orbit,
To Gertrude Buckman
October 22, 1960 Tivoli
Dear Gertrude,
I’m no longer in a position to give you much news of Delmore, because he now has me in his subversive files. He accuses me of slandering him and, when last heard from, was threatening me with a lawsuit. I had asked a friend of mine from the Payne Whitney Clinic to visit him at Bellevue and although Delmore received this man without hostility, he seems later to have worked it out in his mind that I had meant to railroad him. Dr. Hatterer’s opinion was that Delmore was not in need of extended treatment and what he mainly needed was a period of rest. There was no need therefore for Delmore to enter Payne Whitney which never accepts patients for periods shorter than three months. Anyhow no one had authority to intervene for Delmore and he was, and so far as I know still is, at the mercy of the lawyers and detectives he has hired, and the creeps whose good offices are always free and always available. I hope with all my heart that they won’t hurt him, that he will not hurt himself. He seems to have devised for himself a system for survival in the midst of crises he generates himself—the eye of the cyclone or the brink of disaster. That’s a very crowded brink. My own life is usefully quiet. I suppose that means that I am out of things. I couldn’t be gladder. Thanks for the book you sent; one of these days I shall certainly read it, but just now I am writing one myself which I hope you will have the charity to read when it comes out.
Best wishes,
To John Berryman
[Postmarked Tivoli, N.Y., 23 November 1960]
Dear John,
Wouldn’t you like to sing an aria or two in the next
Savage
? That department is the weakest; it needs your strengthening voice. I’m contributing several pieces. The other editors are in drydock. But I myself, more barnacles than hull, go on. The younger generation rates zero; we aging writers are the whole hope of the future.
Savage
? That department is the weakest; it needs your strengthening voice. I’m contributing several pieces. The other editors are in drydock. But I myself, more barnacles than hull, go on. The younger generation rates zero; we aging writers are the whole hope of the future.
Give out.
Saw your old pal [R. P.] Blackmur at Yale last week, and he is even older. He drops lighted cigarettes in the furniture and slowly searches for them. This made good sport for the sober watchers. I was one.
Rispondi, amico!
[
63
].
[
63
].
We have two weeks.
To Susan Glassman
November 30, 1960 [Tivoli]
Carissima!
Washington, Wed Dec 21st at 8:40. What-what-what? Yours in frenzied speed,
Carissima!
Washington, Wed Dec 21st at 8:40. What-what-what? Yours in frenzied speed,
Bellow the Rocket, with a rocket’s love!
To Richard Stern
December 10, 1960 Tivoli
Dear Dick—
This is very good news, all of it. Congratulations! And congratulate Gay for me (if she knows that I know). I belong to the increase-and-multiply school myself, sons-of-Abraham division. As for the books, they’ll give you a fixed place on the map, and in these backward times that’s not so easy to obtain.
Herzog is like Old Man River, he don’t say nothing. You and me we sweat and strain but he empties into the Gulf. We’re close to the halfway mark. And I’m getting ready to take off for Puerto Rico. [ . . . ]
All the best,
To the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
27 December 1960 Tivoli, N.Y.
CONFIDENTIAL REPORT ON FELLOWSHIP CANDIDATE
Name of Candidate: Mrs. Grace Paley
An excellent writer, fresh, original, independent, clear in her aims. She’s written some stunning stories. In speaking of “fresh news” Mrs. Paley does not exaggerate. I have published one chapter from her novel in the magazine I edit. If I were a publisher I’d like to publish her book. I hope the Foundation will help her to finish it.
To Mark Harris
[n.d.]
Dear Mark—
When my father died I was for a long time
sunk
. I hope you’re a wiser sufferer. My business is survival, with pain unavoidable.
sunk
. I hope you’re a wiser sufferer. My business is survival, with pain unavoidable.
By now I’m far better. Thanks for job offer. Have to say no.
All best,
1961
To Susan Glassman
[January 15, 1961] [Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico] Dolly: I am away, spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch. [ . . . ] I miss you already. I’m going out now to lunch with Keith, who just blew in.
Till tomorrow.
To Susan Glassman
January 16, 1961 [Rio Piedras]
On the plane, only I had bathed. There were three hundred passengers and six hundred children. Next to me a priest smoked cigars. He had a dozen in his upper coat pocket and said that’ll be just about enough for the trip. Then came cold supper. Ham wrapped around asparagus, roast beef in red something and glazed chicken breast with a first lieutenant’s stripe in red pimento. After which coffee-flavored French pastry. Everybody dying of heat and finally PR almost on time. Your absence made me take two sleeping pills, from which I haven’t yet recovered. So till tomorrow your glad lover looks with dazed eyes at the mango trees. This is like nowhere else. I feel like little Gray Sambo.
Last night my pillow was you—a poor substitute. Particulars follow. Eat! Don’t fret!
Love,
To Susan Glassman
January 18, 1961 [Rio Piedras]
Dolly—
I am writing on one of the consecrated pages, two Cuba libres in me at Botsfords’ tennis club, tropical sunset, the Caribbean like a sublime footpath behind, and the palm trees doing their job in front. There are problems (O heavy word!). I need a car, a house, a stone, a leaf and a door. The island is marvelous. You will fall in love with it, being of an open nature. You will. It’s going to be a great March. Must, however, find a place to live. Keith was too confident about the places available. Wants me to live with him forty-five minutes out and with three kids, and maid, and no car. I see now that a Vespa is suicidal. This driving makes Rome and Paris look like Wellesley and Vassar. [ . . . ]
The wire was signed Pres.-elect and MRS. Kennedy.
Love,
Bellow evidently refers to an invitation to John F. Kennedy’s inauguration delivered by Western Union.
To Susan Glassman
January 23, 1961 [Rio Piedras]
Dolly—
I’m getting nowhere that I can see. One week in Puerto Rico and my inquiring mind’s very well satisfied. I’d be happy to return, but no, the grille is down now and I must try to wake up from this pressing, beautiful heat—everlasting summer—and the depressed sense of having come out of the movies at midday. I haven’t yet found a place. The Botsfords are kind, the kids lovely, the Puerto neighbors friendly and all that jazz, but I am on the turntable with no music coming forth. And I begin to miss you badly.
I’ve fought the good fight against the tropics. People advise me to rest more and give up the Northern tempo. I realize I adore running and dislike repose. Now I’ve seen bananas growing. Okay! Shall I lie under a tree with eyes shut and mouth open like a child and let the lizards chase over me?
And I really do miss you—even your earnestness; sometimes it has struck me funny, but I miss it.
Write me, Susie, I need to hear something good from you.
Love,
To Ralph Ross
January 20, 1961 [Rio Piedras]
Dear Ralph—
The scandal on the grapevine from Mpls. evidently isn’t all contra-Bellow. Well, well—it has its amusing aspect, even. All these senseless old words like
adultery
and
infidelity
and
love honor obey
. Well, you told me I didn’t understand the fabric of society and a word to the wise has made a student of me. Not a cynic, but a student.
adultery
and
infidelity
and
love honor obey
. Well, you told me I didn’t understand the fabric of society and a word to the wise has made a student of me. Not a cynic, but a student.
[Ted] Hoffman tells me you were great at Carnegie [Tech]. Did you want that fancy job? I thought it no harm to put your name in the hopper.
Puerto Rico is a long way from the Jacks and Jills and Jonases. It suits me fine. I have general friends, all-purpose friends, a
dear
friend, and I’m writing a book, growing a new life the way newts grow tails.
dear
friend, and I’m writing a book, growing a new life the way newts grow tails.
Best to Alicia.
Yours ever,
To Ralph Ellison
[n.d.] [Rio Piedras]
Dear Ralph:
It’s great here in the tropics. I look out and see the little birds cringe in the mahogany tree as the helicopter swoops over. This is, and for once Kazin had it right, one of the most noisy places in the entire world. But one must rise above ordinary complaints. Perhaps the noise means something, and I try to tune in. Meanwhile I go on, looking for a place to live, and that’s not simple here either. There’s a great shortage in winter because of the vacationists from New York. And nevertheless I keep going, and drift with the stray dogs and the lizards and wonder how many ways a banana leaf can split. The dog population is Asiatic—wandering tribes of mongrels. They turn up in all the fashionable places, and in the modern university buildings, the cafeterias—there are always a few hounds sleeping in a cool classroom, and at night they howl and fight. But with one another, not with the rats, another huge population, reddish brown and fearless. You see them in vacant lots downtown, and at the exclusive tennis club at the seashore. I won’t be surprised to see them at the crap table, watching the game. Then there is the mongoose clan. They eliminated the snakes, but now no one knows what to do about their raids on the chickens. So much for the zoology of this place. The island is beautiful The towns stink. The crowds are aimless, cheerful, curious and gaudy. Drivers read at the wheel, they sing, they eat and they screw while driving. Keith had an accident last week. So far, in his little Volkswagen (with ninety thousand miles on it) I’ve escaped. But I should get clipped soon. What else? I miss Susie, but badly. I hope she’ll be able to come down soon.
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