Bare Skin

It never occurred to me, when I got into this thing, that it was an entirely different kind of exposure from the ones I had been used to as a writer of prose pieces. A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist—nothing shields him from the world’s gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix things up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time. — Letter to Harper editor Corona Machemer from E.B. White, June 11, 1975

According to personal reading habits, a thick collection of letters is more enjoyably read in bits and pieces, a letter or two every few days or once a week. It’s for this reason I leave a copy of the 1976 Harper & Row collection, Letters of E.B. White on a table within easy reach. As a constant letter writer from a young age, the collection is quite extensive and according to White, before their publication filled a very large suitcase covering more than sixty years of his life. Elwyn Brooks White has been described with a range of accolades, but the simplest and most accurate has always been his reputation as the dean of American prose. He was the supreme model for clarity in prose writing, his essays an almost weekly model seen for many years in The New Yorker, but he carried it a step further, and with William Strunk wrote the textbook used by thousands of students over the years, including myself. That landmark book is The Elements of Style. White began a lifetime of letter writing around the age of nine, continuing the practice avidly until his death in 1985.

Four interesting or in some cases revealing excerpts from the letters follow:

Spring has arrived in Ohio. This is a flat state where red pigs graze in bright green fields and where farms are neat and prosperous—not like New York farms. We roll along through dozens of villages and cities whose names we never heard. They are typical of the middle west. The oldest inhabitant is generally standing somewhere pulling a long white beard, the smithy door is generally open and the sound of the anvil to be heard, the village flapper is usually flapping up and down along Main Street in front of a group of jobless youths who help hold the drug store up, and somewhere there is always a housewife sweeping off a porch or carrying a spadeful of manure to the garden. Toward evening the country scenes become idyllic—the sort of thing you have seen in the moving pictures and never quite believed in. Sheep come drifting up long green lawns where poplars throw interminable shadows, come drifting up and stand like statues beneath white plum blossoms, while far down the lane and off in the fields a little Ford tractor moves like a snail across the furrows. Lilacs are in full bloom and the lavender ironwood blossoms are coloring all the roads. — FROM A LETTER TO HIS MOTHER, 26 APRIL 1922

It would appear to me that the use of my material by Doubleday was less an error than a deliberate switch, to accommodate some kind of format or package that the editor desired for the book. The wording of the agreement seems clear enough—three chapters, each with its title. And I assume that harper stipulated that these three selections be used entire. Isn’t the the usual stipulation in such requests?

I am disturbed about the matter simply because I do not like anything of mine rearranged or telescoped to suit somebody’s whim or to fit somebody’s space. I am aware of the problem of anthologists; I am also aware of the problems of authors, one of which is to keep material intact, free from meddling. I never wrote anything called “Stuart Goes to Sea” and I’ll not allow Doubleday to write it just because it happens to suit their fancy…

Doubleday’s suggestion for correcting this “error” seems to me inadequate, considering the terms of our agreement. I would like to have Harper’s opinion about what should be done. I think Doubleday should either use the stuff in the way we agreed upon or drop it entirely…

— FROM A JANUARY 24, 1969 LETTER TO HELEN LANE, PERMISSIONS EDITOR AT HARPER’S

Writing, which is my way of serving, is hard work for me and usually not attended with any joy. It has its satisfactions, but the act of writing is often a pure headache, and I don’t kid myself about there being any joy in it. When I want some fun, I don’t write, I go sailing. So I often find it hard to plan the day.

Unlike you, I have no faith, only a suitcaseful of beliefs that sustain me. Life’s meaning has always eluded me and I guess always will. But I love it just the same. — LETTER TO MARY VIRGINIA PARRISH, AUGUST 29, 1969

It’s good of you to want to bring out “Here is New York” in a larger format and with photographs. I wish I thought it a good idea, but I’m unable to make myself believe that it is.

You mentioned bringing the book up to date. This would really mean writing a whole new book, and I can’t undertake that under the present circumstances. The book as it stands is a period piece belonging to a day long gone and about a city that no longer exists. On my infrequent visits to New York, I am painfully aware that the city I wrote about in the summer of 1948 has changed beyond recognition and that the mood I used to entertain is no longer upon me. To reissue “Here is New York” in its present text would be unthinkable (the title would have to be “Here Isn’t New York”), and to catch up with New York and get it on paper would, for me at my age, be an assignment beyond my powers.

How sad! I would like to feel differently about this matter. — LETTER TO CASS CANFIELD, JANUARY 30, 1970

For those hardcore fans of E.B. White, more Scriblets about him can be found here, here and here.

Aftermath in Watercolor

Following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, painter and thirty-year resident of the area, Jean Holabird chronicled in watercolor sketches the cleanup of downtown Manhattan. During the days and weeks after that fateful day she walked around those areas not barricaded, describing what she saw through a series of sixty-five watercolors. It was the artist’s way of coming to terms with the devastation she saw around her. Later, as she arranged her work chronologically, she began to make note of certain poems and pieces of poems, as well as other prose excerpts that reminded her of the apocalypse around her. Holabird compiled a book to honor those who died in the attacks, and those whose lives have been unalterably changed as a consequence of the attacks. The result of her work is a book called Out of the Ruins: A New York Record.

The images and excerpts below are a few examples of Jean Holabird’s vision and insights.

‘On September 26, 2001, we were allowed to go home. We had fled reluctantly, with only the cats, late on the afternoon of the 11th. The towers were down; a third building was lighting up with fire two blocks to the south. The intervening two weeks had been an ongoing ordeal; first trying to ascertain whether we still had a home at all, then begging for access to retrieve the prescriptions, checkbooks, and watercolors abandoned in our flight. We wondered at how fortunate we were to have survived so relatively unscathed.’ — from the opening pages.

FROM E.B. WHITE’S ESSAY, HERE IS NEW YORK… ‘All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.’ — SUMMER 1948

FROM WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S POEM, THE PRELUDE…

…but after I had seen

that spectacle, for many days, my brain

Worked with a dim and undetermined sense

Of unknown modes of being; o’er my thoughts

There hung a darkness, call it solitude

Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes

Remained, no pleasant images of trees,

Or sea or sky, no colours of green fields;

But huge and mighty forms, that do not live

Like living men, moved slowly throughout the mind

By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

FROM JOHN MILTON’S POEM, PARADISE LOST…

…And here let those

Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell

Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings,

Learn how their greatest monuments of fame

And strength, and art, are easily outdone

By spirits reprobate, and in an hour

What in an age they, with incessant toil

and hands innumerable, scarce perform

New Books, Old Books

Several days ago, while still in Louisiana I wrote some words here about the time spent in New Orleans browsing French Quarter and Garden District bookstores. That was a grand time, but in fact the browsing was only the first phase of the experience. Those who love books and enjoy reading will tell you that in such cases the enjoyment comes in successive steps. The first is browsing among crammed shelves and suddenly discovering a book long tickling the back of your mind. Then there is the first minute or two of taking the book down, opening the front cover and verifying it is that long sought edition. But the third phase of pleasure comes when you arrive home and unpack your book or books and in your favorite reading chair spend a longer time examining dust jacket and binding, reading passages, or perhaps with a new release pressing the pages to your face and breathing the smell of ink and paper.

With one or two exceptions, I saved the last part of this experience for my return to Florida and the familiar cushiness of that well-worn chair with the lamp beside it. Altogether, I came home with thirty-one books, an unwieldy number to comment on in this small space. The bulk of those have now been fondled, perused and considered and wait for time and occasion to allow a deeper reading. From the teetering stack of thirty-one here is an armful of ten books that brought some sparkle to my eyes.

In no particular order…

(1) In the Land of Dreamy Dreams by Ellen Gilchrist — A signed 1981 University of Arkansas softcover edition of the writer’s first collection of stories. One of my favorite southern writers.

(2) Christopher Isherwood’s The Sixties Diaries 1960-1969 — Long awaited second volume of diaries from another of my favorites, and a sublime writer.

(3) The Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass — Anyone who has read Three Junes by Ms Glass will understand this purchase; a just released and signed first edition/first printing.

(4) The Points of My Compass: Letters from the East, the West, the North, the South by E.B. White, — A 1962 Harper & Row edition of essays (letters) by the man who for many years virtually set the standard for American writers; a hard to find edition.

(5) Plainsong by Kent Haruf — The discovery here was not of a particular edition, but more importantly of a writer who writes of ordinary people in language that sparks a sunrise in the heart.

(6) Eventide by Kent haruf — More of the same; this one a surprise gift from my great friend in Baton Rouge.

(7) Sunset Park by Paul Auster — The latest from a man who is surely one of the better American, if not international writers.

(8) I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941 by Victor Klemperer — First heard of this book from a friend and was intrigued by the title.

(9) A second volume by Klemperer, this one covering the years 1942-1945. Once more I thank Raymond for putting these two heavy volumes in a gift bag for these Florida shelves.

(10) Collected Sonnets by Edna St Vincent Millay — A rare 1941 first edition from Harper & Brothers. The discovery of this edition in Librairie Bookshop in the French Quarter nearly brought on hyperventilation.

Much to look forward to in these books, and hopefully they will be enough to temper my book buying urges for a while. But then, how many times have I said that?

The Essayist

One of my favorite essays has for many years been one written by E.B. White in 1941 titled, “Once More to the Lake.” The writer’s name is familiar to many as the author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, the children’s stories that have captivated young readers for years. Others may recall a slim volume they read in college called, The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. But for many years White’s name was associated with The New Yorker magazine, where his essays were a regular feature, and where his wife was a senior editor.

One of the books I brought home from the final sale at Mandala Books in Daytona, is a 1976 first edition of Letters of E.B. White, collected and edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth. I didn’t realize until later how rewarding this purchase would become. Pages I have so far read are generous in unveiling a man, a personality I was only vaguely familiar with. Because of my fondness for his essay, “Once More to the Lake,” I was quick to look up those letters written around the time of the essay’s first publication in 1941. What I discovered was a wealth of facts surrounding the essay’s background, and even an insight into White’s thesis, or intent with the piece. It shouldn’t really surprise me, since I’ve made similar discoveries about other writers through their letters, most prominent among them probably the poet Charles Bukowski. But it’s alway an eye opening process.

According to notes in the Letters of E.B. White, the writer was on many occasions desirous of revisiting places he had known at an earlier time. Thus it was, in 1941 he returned to the Belgrade Lakes in Maine, site of August vacations during his childhood. This return to a childhood ‘cathedral’ is the basis for “Once More to the Lake,” written for his column in Harper’s, the October 1941 issue.

I had often wondered about the final lines of the essay, which always read like a presentiment of death. I discovered the excerpt below in a letter White wrote ten years after the essay’s initial publication:

‘The essay [“Once More to the Lake”] is about a man who feels a sense of identity with his son—a fairly common feeling. But the sense of identity is all mixed up with a feeling of being separated by the years. A child by his very existence, makes a parent feel older, nearer death. So when the little boy in the essay puts on a cold, wet bathing suit, the man feels the chill, as though he were experiencing it. Only for him it is a truly chilling experience, because it suddenly seems to foreshadow death.’

Letters of E.B. White is a weighty book, and “Once More to the Lake” a somewhat lengthy essay, both of which require longer discussion, at least more than is allowed here. For those interested in the essay, this link will take you to an online version. At Amazon look for Essays of E.B. White and a revised edition of the letters. If you haven’t already, I urge you to become acquainted with the writing of Elwyn Brooks White.