The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter

by Katherine Anne Porter

Reprint. Originally published in 1970 by Delacorte Press.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Poetry, Philosophy, Literature, Literary Criticism

496 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1973

About the author

Katherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. She is known for her penetrating insight; her works deal with dark themes such as betrayal, death and the origin of human evil.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherin...

Reviews

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katherine Anne Porter 1890-1980

It is my hope that the reader will find this collection of papers written throughout my thirty years as published writer, the shape, direction, and connective tissue of a continuous, central interest and preoccupation of a lifetime.
They represent the exact opposite of my fiction, in that they were written nearly all by request, with limitations of space, a date fixed for finishing, on a chosen subject or theme, as well as with the certainty that they would be published. I wrote as well as I could at any given moment under a variety of pressures, and said what I meant as nearly as I could come to it: so as they stand, the pieces are really parts of a journal of my thinking and feeling. Then too, they serve to get me a living, such as it was, so that I might be able to write my stories in their own time and way. My stories had to be accepted and published exactly as they were written: that rule has never once been broken. There was no one, whose advice I respected, whose help I would not have been glad to get, and may times did get, on almost any of these articles. I have written, re-written, and revised them. My stories, on the other hand, are written in one draft, and if short enough, at one sitting. In fact, this book would seem to represent the other half of a double life: but not in truth. It is all one thing. The two ways of working helped and supported each other: I needed both.
25 July 1952 K.A.P.

Ms. Porter was my kind of woman. She was left politically and anti-religion much of her life. Her writing reflects those predilections. After my struggles with the religiosity of Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor, she is a joy.

The essays and “occasional writings” that Ms. Porter has selected include several already published book reviews. “A Wreath for the Gamekeeper” is a fine send up (I think that is the term) of Lady Chatterley s Lover. Briefly put, she didn’t admire the book as many do. And this is not the only sly and humorous content. Since this is my first time to read Porter, I am not familiar with her style of writing. But, if this book is exemplary, I like her quite well.

Christopher Sykes is another object of her affection:

Mr. Sykes slogs along with a manly competence, he can see a character in a situation and tell about it, sometimes very entertainingly, but it remains a made-up story, and I am unable to decide whether the final effect of shapelessness and vagueness has been carefully worked, or is it what it really seems to be, an inability to come to grips with his stuff? Does he really know and feel so little about other human beings? – and mind you, he knows what the correct sentiments and moral conclusions should be – or is he deliberately keeping himself free from attachments? As a religious, that may be all very well; as an artist, he is making a mistake.

She does have some heroes and heroines. Here is one:

Virginia Woolf was a great artist, one of the glories of our time, and she never published a line that was not worth reading. The least of her novels would have made the reputation of a lesser writer, the least of her critical writings compare more than favorably with the best criticism of the past half-century.

Most of Porter’s reprints here are from 1940 to 1968. The Nation, The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, Mademoiselle, Ladies Home Journal, Village Voice, Yale Review, Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, Harper’s Magazine and Partisan Review were all kind enough to allow her to share her own work in this book.

There are so many thoughts in The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings but this one about love at first sight is one of my favorites.

There is a third school, to which I long adhered, though now I should say the question is academic. This is the Stoke of Lightning (coup de fodure) or “love at first sight and the hell with theories” school. In this, one beholds (and the circumstances may be of the most ordinary, the time any hour, the place anywhere, the only fixed rule being that it must happen with absolute suddenness, when one is thinking of something, almost anything else); an Object irrevocably becomes a Subject – in my case, of course, male – which is instantly transfigured with a light of such blinding brilliance all natural attributes disappear and are replaced by those usually associated with archangels at least. They are beautiful, flawless in temperament, witty, intelligent, charming, of such infinite grace, sympathy, and courage, I always wondered how they could have come from such absurdly inappropriate families. I notice I have fallen into the plural in describing this paragon. It is just as well. The meeting between us is like an exchange of signals with lightning, they also seeing in me whatever improbable qualities they wish me to have.
It is a disaster, in fact. We are in love and while it lasts –
It is no good going into details, for while it lasts there simply aren’t any. And when it is over, it is over. And when I have recovered from the shock, and sorted out the damage and put my mangled life in order, I can then begin to remember what really happened. It is probably the silliest kind of love there is, but I’m glad I had it. I’m glad there were time I saw human beings at their best, for I don’t think by any means that I lent them all their radiance . . . it was there ready to be brought out by someone who loved them. It is still there, it may have shone out again if they were ever loved like that again. It is just that I know them better than anyone else for a while, they showed me a different face because they knew I could really see it – and no matter what came of it, I remember and I never deny what I saw.
If you ask me where they are now, whatever became of them, I must say that I think that question entirely beyond the point. Lightning makes the most familiar landscape wild, strange, and beautiful, and it passes. It was all my fault, though. If one ever treats a man as if he were an archangel, he can’t ever, possibly, consent to being treated like a human being again. He cannot do it, it’s nonsense to expect it. It begins to look as if I had never wanted it.
And why should I treat him (them) like that in the first place? Because that is the way I felt. Not too sensible, is it?

K.A.P. writes a small encyclopedia in her collection of essays. She writes about artists, roses, authors, marriage and more. Some of her essays are letters to the editor, a form of writing that I love. I will read a letter to the editor and go back an issue or two to read the article.

From a footnote in the essay written in 1950 titled “The Future Is Now”:

*Fall, 1952. The hydrogen bomb has just been exploded, very successful, to the satisfaction of the criminals who caused it to be made.

Katherine Anne Porter is opinionated. Her Gertrude Stein criticism “I thought her no artist” is apparently well known in literary scholarship circles. I know it not and was glad to pay little attention to it as it is included in some detail (via letters) in this book. It was somewhat interesting to me to have a small window into the views of one artist for another. The unvarnished K.A.P. can certainly be rough and prickly. I can see the interest of scholars in the personal letters of the well known. It is important for the reader to remember that the contents of The Collected Essays were selected by Porter herself.

Porter shares some of her thoughts about Eudora Welty, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor and Jacqueline Kennedy. She had some connection with each one. While not a hobnobber, Porter did get around in her years and was well known in her own time.

She includes several chapters from a larger book on Salem Witchcraft about the 17th century Puritan minister Cotton Mather. Much too much praying and fasting over dying wife and children for my liking. She also includes writings from her significant time living in Mexico including her preface to a book she translated from Spanish to English. The Itching Parrot El Periquillo Sarniento does not make it into Goodreads in her English version. This writing did not capture my interest. The book concludes with eight poems by Porter.

My reaction to Porter’s The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings is mixed. This is the first of her writing that I have read. It might have been better to begin with some of her short stories. I found the section “On Writing” near the end of the book to be interesting and enjoyable reading. Porter seems more than willing to display her proclivities and opinions without the disguise of fiction. To the extent that I found the subject matter worthwhile and interesting, I found her essays quite enjoyable. However, even Porter's good writing did not save an essay if the topic was not of interest to me.

Finding a mixture of two and four star material between the covers of this book, I settle for three stars and a suggestion that the reader be prepared to skim through the book to find his or her areas of interest. I am looking forward to reading some of Porter’s short stories one day.

[Andrew]

A series of (mostly) rather wonderful essays by the baddest-ass broad of mid-century American letters, Katherine Anne Porter, who fits firmly in with some of her contemporaries (M.F.K. Fisher, Pauline Kael) as an unapologetically outspoken female cultural critic in a time when the demure and crinolined housewife was considered the American feminine ideal. I fully realize I'm one of the few enthusiasts trying to keep her work alive, and her nonfiction is hardly read at all, which is such a shame. Her acerbic takes on literature, politics, and travel presaged so much of the best journalism being done today, and deserve every reader they can get. Look for a copy on a dusty public library shelf or moldy used bookstore that rarely if ever changes its stock near you.