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Successful Love and Other Stories
Successful Love and Other Delmore Successful Love and Other Persea FIRST First Edition Thus, First Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Persea Books, 1985. Octavo. Paperback. Book is very good with toning to the front and back cover and the pages throughout, and light edgewear. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 365129 Short Stories We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
252 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
3 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Delmore Schwartz
49 books103 followersDelmore Schwartz was born December 8, 1913, in Brooklyn. The marriage of his parents Harry and Rose, both Roumanian immigrants, was doomed to fail. Sadly, this misfortune with relationships was also a theme in Schwartz's life. His alcoholism, frequent use of barbiturates and amphetamines, and battles with various mental diseases, proved adverse in his relationships with women. His first marriage to Gertrude Buckman lasted six years; his second, to the young novelist Elizabeth Pollett, ended after his ceaseless paranoid accusations of adultery led him to attack an art critic with whom he believed Elizabeth was having an affair.
Despite his turbulent and unsettling home life as a child, Schwartz was a gifted and intellectual young student. He enrolled early at Columbia University, and also studied at the University of Wisconsin, eventually receiving his bachelor's degree in 1935 in philosophy from New York University. In 1936 he won the Bowdoin Prize in the Humanities for his essay "Poetry as Imitation." In 1937 his short story "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" (successfully written in one month during the summer of 1935 after he locked himself in his Greenwich Village apartment) was published in Partisan Review, a left-wing magazine of American politics and culture; the following year this short story would be published by New Directions with other poetry and prose in his first book-length work, also titled In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. It was praised by many, including T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell, and Vladimir Nabokov.
He never finished his advanced degree in philosophy at Harvard, but was hired as the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer, and later given an Assistant Professorship. Frustrated by what he believed was a sense of anti-Semitism within the school, in 1947 Schwartz ended his twelve-year association with Harvard and returned to New York City. His book of short stories The World is a Wedding was published the following year. Time compared Schwartz to Stendhal and Anton Chekhov. By this same time his work was widely anthologized. He was publishing critical essays on other important literary figures and cultural topics, and was the poetry editor at Partisan Review, and later also at New Republic.
His increasingly itinerant nature left him dependent on a series of teaching positions at Bennington College, Kenyon College, Princeton University, the writer's colony Yaddo, and at Syracuse University, in his last years. Among others, he inspired the student Lou Reed, who later dedicated "European Son" on the Velvet Underground's first album to Schwartz. In 1960 Schwartz became the youngest poet ever to win the Bollingen Prize. His friend Saul Bellow wrote a semi-fictional memoir about Schwartz called Humboldt's Gift, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
The last years of his life Schwartz was a solitary, disheveled figure in New York. He drank frequently at the White Horse Tavern, and spent his time sitting in parks and collecting bits of work, quotes, and translations in his journal. Finding himself penniless and virtually friendless, in the summer of 1966 Schwartz checked into the Times Squares hotel, perhaps to focus on his writing. Unfortunately by this time his body had been taxed by years of drug and alcohol abuse. He worked continuously until a heart attack on July 11 seized him in the lobby of the hotel.
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Source: poets.org
Despite his turbulent and unsettling home life as a child, Schwartz was a gifted and intellectual young student. He enrolled early at Columbia University, and also studied at the University of Wisconsin, eventually receiving his bachelor's degree in 1935 in philosophy from New York University. In 1936 he won the Bowdoin Prize in the Humanities for his essay "Poetry as Imitation." In 1937 his short story "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" (successfully written in one month during the summer of 1935 after he locked himself in his Greenwich Village apartment) was published in Partisan Review, a left-wing magazine of American politics and culture; the following year this short story would be published by New Directions with other poetry and prose in his first book-length work, also titled In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. It was praised by many, including T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell, and Vladimir Nabokov.
He never finished his advanced degree in philosophy at Harvard, but was hired as the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer, and later given an Assistant Professorship. Frustrated by what he believed was a sense of anti-Semitism within the school, in 1947 Schwartz ended his twelve-year association with Harvard and returned to New York City. His book of short stories The World is a Wedding was published the following year. Time compared Schwartz to Stendhal and Anton Chekhov. By this same time his work was widely anthologized. He was publishing critical essays on other important literary figures and cultural topics, and was the poetry editor at Partisan Review, and later also at New Republic.
His increasingly itinerant nature left him dependent on a series of teaching positions at Bennington College, Kenyon College, Princeton University, the writer's colony Yaddo, and at Syracuse University, in his last years. Among others, he inspired the student Lou Reed, who later dedicated "European Son" on the Velvet Underground's first album to Schwartz. In 1960 Schwartz became the youngest poet ever to win the Bollingen Prize. His friend Saul Bellow wrote a semi-fictional memoir about Schwartz called Humboldt's Gift, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
The last years of his life Schwartz was a solitary, disheveled figure in New York. He drank frequently at the White Horse Tavern, and spent his time sitting in parks and collecting bits of work, quotes, and translations in his journal. Finding himself penniless and virtually friendless, in the summer of 1966 Schwartz checked into the Times Squares hotel, perhaps to focus on his writing. Unfortunately by this time his body had been taxed by years of drug and alcohol abuse. He worked continuously until a heart attack on July 11 seized him in the lobby of the hotel.
________________________________________
Source: poets.org
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 13, 2009
Most people who admire Schwartz tend to keep an embarrassed silence about this book. He was mentally ill in the 50s when most of the stories were written, they say; they're flabby and unconnected to anything he knew.
I disagree. At essence, they are stories about miscommunication: a father struggling to come to terms with the sexual awakening of his daughter in a society more liberal than the one he grew up in; Europeans and Americans misunderstanding each other; an enormously precocious academic failing to understand what it is to love. They can, at times, be over-ponderous, no doubt - one of the faults, I'd suggest, that has kept Schwartz from a wider popular audience. But there are also moments of high hilarity and pathos, proving that Schwartz was one of the subtlest of social satirists.
I disagree. At essence, they are stories about miscommunication: a father struggling to come to terms with the sexual awakening of his daughter in a society more liberal than the one he grew up in; Europeans and Americans misunderstanding each other; an enormously precocious academic failing to understand what it is to love. They can, at times, be over-ponderous, no doubt - one of the faults, I'd suggest, that has kept Schwartz from a wider popular audience. But there are also moments of high hilarity and pathos, proving that Schwartz was one of the subtlest of social satirists.
December 27, 2023
I came across Delmore Schwartz's dream-like, eventually nightmarish short story from a fairly recent read, Gilbert Adair's Movies, and was intrigued enough to pursue more of his work. But I can't make heads nor tails on how I feel about this collection. Certainly, the stories are dated, which would usually be a point in the book's favor. Out of 9 unexceptional stories, only five are likely to be remembered, for unlikely reasons:
1) The Fabulous Twenty-Dollar Bill - Too much overthinking, highballs, and a long-winded pseudo intellectual conversation between insecure academicians from both sides of the Atlantic make this a one of the dullest among the lot.
2) The Track Meet - Weird. Kafkaesque, but not in an engaging way weird.
3) The Gift - Probably the only satisfactory read.
4) A Colossal Fortune - Sheldon Lee Cooper-type boy meets girl. Too bad Chuck Lorre isn't around to salvage the mess that comes after.
5) The Hartford Innocents - Long, sanctimonious, and preachy tale about a young, precocious girl who can seemingly do no wrong.
At times, Schwartz's writing felt like versions of a less bombastic Philip Roth, a dulled-down John Cheever, and John Updike's discarded drafts. I don't think I'll be pursuing more of Delmore Schwartz's other works anytime soon.
1) The Fabulous Twenty-Dollar Bill - Too much overthinking, highballs, and a long-winded pseudo intellectual conversation between insecure academicians from both sides of the Atlantic make this a one of the dullest among the lot.
2) The Track Meet - Weird. Kafkaesque, but not in an engaging way weird.
3) The Gift - Probably the only satisfactory read.
4) A Colossal Fortune - Sheldon Lee Cooper-type boy meets girl. Too bad Chuck Lorre isn't around to salvage the mess that comes after.
5) The Hartford Innocents - Long, sanctimonious, and preachy tale about a young, precocious girl who can seemingly do no wrong.
At times, Schwartz's writing felt like versions of a less bombastic Philip Roth, a dulled-down John Cheever, and John Updike's discarded drafts. I don't think I'll be pursuing more of Delmore Schwartz's other works anytime soon.
February 3, 2022
A lot of Schwartz' content engages in the very lengths we go in self-deception and twisting the narrative just to avoid negative self-judgment. Painfully awakening prose that can sometimes feel a bit didactic and repulsive, like an academic essay. I'd never heard of Schwartz before this one but he is definitely the kind of philosophical writer (with as strong an author's voice as the characters') that I've been coming to enjoy a lot lately. His sense of humor and mockery of human beings definitely did remind me of Milan Kundera (although the latter is a lot darker).
My favorite was the story of the American and Italian academics. The Hartford Innocents - I was waiting for it to be over, as someone else also mentioned here. I'm curious where his apparent interest in feminism and perspectives of young women come from.
My favorite was the story of the American and Italian academics. The Hartford Innocents - I was waiting for it to be over, as someone else also mentioned here. I'm curious where his apparent interest in feminism and perspectives of young women come from.
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April 11, 2024The anxiety of the eponymous story is a worthy subject, the implication of which I'm not certain is fully understood by readers today. It's not merely about a father accepting the more liberal society that awaits his young daughter -- he is willing concede this early on with bemuse interest. It's that she has, in short time, mastered it by means he never possessed, much less could have imagined that disturbs him so.
I don't think there's any sense in reviewing each piece. Successful Love is the reason for owning it. The others are well focused and arrive at equally bleak conclusions for the direction America was headed, but if you can't buy into the prior the rest probably aren't for you.
A footnote for the curious: Schwartz was Lou Reed's professor and mentor at Syracuse. Worth mentioning the connection is more apparent here than while reading something like In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, which I didn't much care for.
I don't think there's any sense in reviewing each piece. Successful Love is the reason for owning it. The others are well focused and arrive at equally bleak conclusions for the direction America was headed, but if you can't buy into the prior the rest probably aren't for you.
A footnote for the curious: Schwartz was Lou Reed's professor and mentor at Syracuse. Worth mentioning the connection is more apparent here than while reading something like In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, which I didn't much care for.
March 5, 2009
"The Hartford Innocents" was my least favorite story. Too much boring pontification. Why do authors do this? I wanted to know what happened to the characters in the story and I wanted some more dialogue. Instead the bulk of it was written like a letter, really an academic report, which made it more of an essay, I don't know, I guess I just found that story boring. The last story, "The Statues" I liked -- it had lines that to me were reminiscent of Oscar Wilde. I wanted to like this collection more than I actually did.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews