M. Allen Cunningham's Blog, page 23
January 8, 2011
Prime Passage: Saul Bellow: Letters
From Bellow's letter to the Guggenheim Foundation, January 20, 1953:
"I am perfectly sure that he will become a major novelist. He has every prerequisite: the personal, definite style, the emotional resources, the understanding of character, the dramatic sense and the intelligence. He understands what the tasks of an imaginative writer of today are. Not to be appalled by these tasks is in and of itself a piece of heroism. Imagination has been steadily losing prestige in American life, it seems to me, for a long time. I am speaking of the poetic imagination. Inferior kinds of imagination have prospered, but the poetic has less credit than ever before. Perhaps that is because there is less room than ever for the personal, spacious, unanxious and free, for the unprepared, unorganized and spontaneous elements from which poetic imagination springs. It is upon writers like Mr. Malamud that the future of literature in America depends, writers who have not sought to protect themselves by joining schools or by identification with prevailing tastes and tendencies. The greatest threat to writing today is the threat of conformism. Art is the speech of an artist, of an individual, and it testifies to the power of individuals to speak and to the power of other individuals to listen and understand.
"Literal-minded critics of Mr. Malamud's novel, The Natural, complained that it was not about true-to-life baseball players and failed entirely to see that it was a parable of the man of great endowments, or myth of the champion. I have immense faith in Mr. Malamud's power to make himself understood. I should be very happy to hear that he had become a Guggenheim fellow." (p.118)
Buy Bellow's Letters here.
"I am perfectly sure that he will become a major novelist. He has every prerequisite: the personal, definite style, the emotional resources, the understanding of character, the dramatic sense and the intelligence. He understands what the tasks of an imaginative writer of today are. Not to be appalled by these tasks is in and of itself a piece of heroism. Imagination has been steadily losing prestige in American life, it seems to me, for a long time. I am speaking of the poetic imagination. Inferior kinds of imagination have prospered, but the poetic has less credit than ever before. Perhaps that is because there is less room than ever for the personal, spacious, unanxious and free, for the unprepared, unorganized and spontaneous elements from which poetic imagination springs. It is upon writers like Mr. Malamud that the future of literature in America depends, writers who have not sought to protect themselves by joining schools or by identification with prevailing tastes and tendencies. The greatest threat to writing today is the threat of conformism. Art is the speech of an artist, of an individual, and it testifies to the power of individuals to speak and to the power of other individuals to listen and understand.
"Literal-minded critics of Mr. Malamud's novel, The Natural, complained that it was not about true-to-life baseball players and failed entirely to see that it was a parable of the man of great endowments, or myth of the champion. I have immense faith in Mr. Malamud's power to make himself understood. I should be very happy to hear that he had become a Guggenheim fellow." (p.118)
Buy Bellow's Letters here.
December 18, 2010
Thoreau's Walden Roundly Rejected by Today's Publishers
My piece, "From e-mails to Henry David Thoreau's Literary Agent," appears in the Books section of this Sunday's Oregonian (12/19/2010). It's online today:
"Walden; or, Life in the Woods" (rethink title?) seems to us the kind of book most enjoyably read in the forest, but because the scarcity of electrical outlets in the forest will preclude robust e-book sales, I'm afraid we must decline at this time. ...Read the whole thing.
Thoreau's Walden Roundly Rejected by Today's Publishers
My piece, "From e-mails to Henry David Thoreau's Literary Agent," appears in the Books section of this Sunday's Oregonian (12/19/2010). It's online today:
"Walden; or, Life in the Woods" (rethink title?) seems to us the kind of book most enjoyably read in the forest, but because the scarcity of electrical outlets in the forest will preclude robust e-book sales, I'm afraid we must decline at this time. ...Read the whole thing.
December 10, 2010
Prime Passage: The Din in the Head by Cynthia Ozick (2006)
"…By the 1970s, the novel as the holy vessel of the imagination (itself having deposed poetry) was undone. Magazines dropped fiction. Notions of journalism as the equal of imaginative writing took hold ("the nonfiction novel" as pioneered by Truman Capote, replicated by Norman Mailer). Bohemians who had been willing enough to endure the romantic penury of cold-water walkups while sneering at popular entertainment were displaced by beatniks who were themselves popular entertainment. …
"With such radical (and representative) changes in the culture, and with High Art in the form of the novel having lost its centrality, the nature of ambition too was bound to alter. This is not to say that young writers today are no longer driven—and some may even be possessed—by the strenuous forces of literary ambition. Zeal, after all, is a constant, and so must be the pool, or the sea, of born writers. But the great engines of technology lure striving talents to television and Hollywood, or to the lighter varieties of theater, or (especially) to the prompt gratifications and high-velocity fame of the magazines, where topical articles generate buzz and gather no moss. The sworn novelists, who despite the devourings of the hour, continue to revere the novel (the novel as moss, with its leisurely accretions of character and incident, its disclosures of secrets, its landscapes and cityscapes and mindscapes, its idiosyncratic particularisms of language and insight)—these sworn novelists remain on the scene, if not on the rise." p.136
Buy The Din in the Head here.
"With such radical (and representative) changes in the culture, and with High Art in the form of the novel having lost its centrality, the nature of ambition too was bound to alter. This is not to say that young writers today are no longer driven—and some may even be possessed—by the strenuous forces of literary ambition. Zeal, after all, is a constant, and so must be the pool, or the sea, of born writers. But the great engines of technology lure striving talents to television and Hollywood, or to the lighter varieties of theater, or (especially) to the prompt gratifications and high-velocity fame of the magazines, where topical articles generate buzz and gather no moss. The sworn novelists, who despite the devourings of the hour, continue to revere the novel (the novel as moss, with its leisurely accretions of character and incident, its disclosures of secrets, its landscapes and cityscapes and mindscapes, its idiosyncratic particularisms of language and insight)—these sworn novelists remain on the scene, if not on the rise." p.136
Buy The Din in the Head here.
Prime Passage: The Din in the Head by Cynthia Ozick (2006)
"…By the 1970s, the novel as the holy vessel of the imagination (itself having deposed poetry) was undone. Magazines dropped fiction. Notions of journalism as the equal of imaginative writing took hold ("the nonfiction novel" as pioneered by Truman Capote, replicated by Norman Mailer). Bohemians who had been willing enough to endure the romantic penury of cold-water walkups while sneering at popular entertainment were displaced by beatniks who were themselves popular entertainment. …
"With such radical (and representative) changes in the culture, and with High Art in the form of the novel having lost its centrality, the nature of ambition too was bound to alter. This is not to say that young writers today are no longer driven—and some may even be possessed—by the strenuous forces of literary ambition. Zeal, after all, is a constant, and so must be the pool, or the sea, of born writers. But the great engines of technology lure striving talents to television and Hollywood, or to the lighter varieties of theater, or (especially) to the prompt gratifications and high-velocity fame of the magazines, where topical articles generate buzz and gather no moss. The sworn novelists, who despite the devourings of the hour, continue to revere the novel (the novel as moss, with its leisurely accretions of character and incident, its disclosures of secrets, its landscapes and cityscapes and mindscapes, its idiosyncratic particularisms of language and insight)—these sworn novelists remain on the scene, if not on the rise." p.136
Buy The Din in the Head here.
"With such radical (and representative) changes in the culture, and with High Art in the form of the novel having lost its centrality, the nature of ambition too was bound to alter. This is not to say that young writers today are no longer driven—and some may even be possessed—by the strenuous forces of literary ambition. Zeal, after all, is a constant, and so must be the pool, or the sea, of born writers. But the great engines of technology lure striving talents to television and Hollywood, or to the lighter varieties of theater, or (especially) to the prompt gratifications and high-velocity fame of the magazines, where topical articles generate buzz and gather no moss. The sworn novelists, who despite the devourings of the hour, continue to revere the novel (the novel as moss, with its leisurely accretions of character and incident, its disclosures of secrets, its landscapes and cityscapes and mindscapes, its idiosyncratic particularisms of language and insight)—these sworn novelists remain on the scene, if not on the rise." p.136
Buy The Din in the Head here.
December 5, 2010
Prime Passage: An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis
"The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)" p.19
Prime Passage: An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis
"The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)" p.19
November 29, 2010
Prime Passage: The Night Inspector by Frederick Busch
Of the secondary character called "M," who is Herman Melville:
"For so many of his young years, he had written what he could to make his way and make his wage; then, apparently, he had manufactured what he must, and he'd made neither. That is the way of the world, the ebb and flow of dollars, but knowing this could not have been of consolation; and in the pressure in the house -- an atmosphere, like storm, as the barometric pressure dropped, and the very air pressed hard, in silence, at the inner doors of the rooms, the windows looking onto East Twenty-sixth Street -- he drank his drinks and then escaped to walk to work, swallowing his own saliva as it welled like poison in his throat and mouth, and heard, from this remaining friend or that, how many of the other, former, friends were certain he had died." p.186
"For so many of his young years, he had written what he could to make his way and make his wage; then, apparently, he had manufactured what he must, and he'd made neither. That is the way of the world, the ebb and flow of dollars, but knowing this could not have been of consolation; and in the pressure in the house -- an atmosphere, like storm, as the barometric pressure dropped, and the very air pressed hard, in silence, at the inner doors of the rooms, the windows looking onto East Twenty-sixth Street -- he drank his drinks and then escaped to walk to work, swallowing his own saliva as it welled like poison in his throat and mouth, and heard, from this remaining friend or that, how many of the other, former, friends were certain he had died." p.186
November 10, 2010
Prime Passage: Herman Melville on Emerson; "His brains descend down into his neck"
Melville's letter of March 3, 1849 to Evert Duyckinck, friend and editor of The Literary World.
"Nay, I do not oscillate in Emerson's rainbow, but prefer rather to hang myself in mine own halter than swing in any other man's swing. Yet I think Emerson is more than a brilliant fellow. Be his stuff begged, borrowed, or stolen, or of his own domestic manufacture, he is an uncommon man.
"Swear he is a humbug -- then he is no uncommon humbug. Lay it down that had not Sir Thomas Browne lived, Emerson would not have mystified -- I will answer that had not old Zach's father begot him, Old Zach would never have been the hero of Palo Alto. The truth is that we are all sons, grandsons, or nephews or great-nephews of those who go before us. No one is his own sire.
"I was very agreeably disappointed in Mr. Emerson. I had heard of him as full of transcendentalism, myths and oracular gibberish ... to my surprise, I found him quite intelligible, tho' to say truth, they told me that that night he was unusually plain.
"Now, there is a something about every man elevated above mediocrity, which is for the most part instantly perceptible. This I see in Mr. Emerson. And, frankly, for the sake of the argument, let us call him a fool -- then had I rather be a fool than a wise man.
"I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down the stairs five miles or more; and if he don't attain the bottom, why, all the lead in Galena can't fashion the plummit that will. I'm not talking about Mr. Emerson now, but of the whole corps of thought-divers that have been diving and coming up again with blood-shot eyes since the world began.
"I could readily see in Emerson, notwithstanding his merit, a gaping flaw. It was the insinuation that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions. These men are all cracked right across the brow. And never will the pullers-down be able to cope with builders-up ... But enough of this Plato who talks thro' his nose.
"You complain that Emerson tho' a denizen of the land of gingerbread, is above munching a plain cake in company of jolly fellows, and swigging (?) off his ale like you and me. Ah, my dear Sir, that's his misfortune, not his fault. His belly, Sir, is in his chest, and his brains descend down into his neck, and offer an obstacle to a draughtful of ale or a mouthful of cake... Goodbye. H.M."
"Nay, I do not oscillate in Emerson's rainbow, but prefer rather to hang myself in mine own halter than swing in any other man's swing. Yet I think Emerson is more than a brilliant fellow. Be his stuff begged, borrowed, or stolen, or of his own domestic manufacture, he is an uncommon man.
"Swear he is a humbug -- then he is no uncommon humbug. Lay it down that had not Sir Thomas Browne lived, Emerson would not have mystified -- I will answer that had not old Zach's father begot him, Old Zach would never have been the hero of Palo Alto. The truth is that we are all sons, grandsons, or nephews or great-nephews of those who go before us. No one is his own sire.
"I was very agreeably disappointed in Mr. Emerson. I had heard of him as full of transcendentalism, myths and oracular gibberish ... to my surprise, I found him quite intelligible, tho' to say truth, they told me that that night he was unusually plain.
"Now, there is a something about every man elevated above mediocrity, which is for the most part instantly perceptible. This I see in Mr. Emerson. And, frankly, for the sake of the argument, let us call him a fool -- then had I rather be a fool than a wise man.
"I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down the stairs five miles or more; and if he don't attain the bottom, why, all the lead in Galena can't fashion the plummit that will. I'm not talking about Mr. Emerson now, but of the whole corps of thought-divers that have been diving and coming up again with blood-shot eyes since the world began.
"I could readily see in Emerson, notwithstanding his merit, a gaping flaw. It was the insinuation that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions. These men are all cracked right across the brow. And never will the pullers-down be able to cope with builders-up ... But enough of this Plato who talks thro' his nose.
"You complain that Emerson tho' a denizen of the land of gingerbread, is above munching a plain cake in company of jolly fellows, and swigging (?) off his ale like you and me. Ah, my dear Sir, that's his misfortune, not his fault. His belly, Sir, is in his chest, and his brains descend down into his neck, and offer an obstacle to a draughtful of ale or a mouthful of cake... Goodbye. H.M."
October 20, 2010
"Books Inhabit the World"
Portland author Sallie Tisdale, on her experience judging this year's National Book Awards (via The Oregonian):
"All this reading could be on a gray screen; I could be clicking buttons instead of turning pages. In the bookless future a few of these books predict, there would be no boxes, no piles...
I would, of course, have gone mad, thrown the little plastic thing out the window long ago. The real glory of all these books is simply that they exist. They will endure in the world as solid things. I love the piles -- the teetering, heavy, uneven piles, the cumbersome crowding of books thick and thin. These are piles of piled-up things, sculptured objects taking up room. No gray screen can honor the way font shape and space are designed to convey thought. Books inhabit the world in a way not unlike the way you and I do."
"All this reading could be on a gray screen; I could be clicking buttons instead of turning pages. In the bookless future a few of these books predict, there would be no boxes, no piles...
I would, of course, have gone mad, thrown the little plastic thing out the window long ago. The real glory of all these books is simply that they exist. They will endure in the world as solid things. I love the piles -- the teetering, heavy, uneven piles, the cumbersome crowding of books thick and thin. These are piles of piled-up things, sculptured objects taking up room. No gray screen can honor the way font shape and space are designed to convey thought. Books inhabit the world in a way not unlike the way you and I do."
