Letters (4 page)
Authors: Saul Bellow
1931-32
Abram’s fortunes improve, despite Depression. Family moves from West to East Humboldt Park. (“We belonged to the heart of the country. We were at home in the streets, in the bleachers. I remember portly sonorous Mr. Sugerman, the
schochet
on Division Street, singing out the names of the states during the Democratic roll call, broadcast on the radio, that nominated FDR. He did this in cantorial Jewish style, as though he were standing at the prayer desk, proud of knowing the correct order from A to W, an American patriot who wore a black rabbinical beard.”)
Abram’s fortunes improve, despite Depression. Family moves from West to East Humboldt Park. (“We belonged to the heart of the country. We were at home in the streets, in the bleachers. I remember portly sonorous Mr. Sugerman, the
schochet
on Division Street, singing out the names of the states during the Democratic roll call, broadcast on the radio, that nominated FDR. He did this in cantorial Jewish style, as though he were standing at the prayer desk, proud of knowing the correct order from A to W, an American patriot who wore a black rabbinical beard.”)
1933
In January, graduates from Tuley and enrolls at Crane Junior College in Chicago Loop. At home, frequent political arguments between father and son. (“For some reason Trotsky took a very powerful hold in certain American cities and Chicago was one of them. To read Trotsky’s
History of the Revolution
was an eye-opener—even though most of it was party-line; we didn’t know that at the time. And this caused conflict at home because my father didn’t want me reading Lenin. He was very shrewd about such things, and he knew a lot about what was going on in the Soviet Union in the Twenties, and he knew much more about it than I did. I would have done well and saved myself a lot of trouble if I had listened to him, because he had it straight from the very beginning.”) Mother dies after long battle with breast cancer. In autumn Sol enrolls at University of Chicago, following Rosenfeld’s lead. (“[Isaac’s] color was generally poor, yellowish. At the University of Chicago during the Thirties, this was the preferred intellectual complexion.”) Rents furnished room at Hyde Park boardinghouse.
In January, graduates from Tuley and enrolls at Crane Junior College in Chicago Loop. At home, frequent political arguments between father and son. (“For some reason Trotsky took a very powerful hold in certain American cities and Chicago was one of them. To read Trotsky’s
History of the Revolution
was an eye-opener—even though most of it was party-line; we didn’t know that at the time. And this caused conflict at home because my father didn’t want me reading Lenin. He was very shrewd about such things, and he knew a lot about what was going on in the Soviet Union in the Twenties, and he knew much more about it than I did. I would have done well and saved myself a lot of trouble if I had listened to him, because he had it straight from the very beginning.”) Mother dies after long battle with breast cancer. In autumn Sol enrolls at University of Chicago, following Rosenfeld’s lead. (“[Isaac’s] color was generally poor, yellowish. At the University of Chicago during the Thirties, this was the preferred intellectual complexion.”) Rents furnished room at Hyde Park boardinghouse.
1934
Abram, now owner and manager of the Carroll Coal Company, remarries. Sol and friend Herb Passin ride the rails as far as New York and Montreal. Both briefly arrested in Detroit.
Abram, now owner and manager of the Carroll Coal Company, remarries. Sol and friend Herb Passin ride the rails as far as New York and Montreal. Both briefly arrested in Detroit.
1935
Family faces financial reversals. Abram can no longer send Sol to University of Chicago. Transfers to Northwestern; studies English literature; also anthropology under Melville J. Herskovits, influential social scientist of the day. (“I learned that what was right among the African Masai was wrong with the Eskimos. Later I saw that this was a treacherous doctrine—morality should be made of sterner stuff. But in my youth my head was turned by the study of erratic—or goofy—customs. In my early twenties I was a cultural relativist.”)
Family faces financial reversals. Abram can no longer send Sol to University of Chicago. Transfers to Northwestern; studies English literature; also anthropology under Melville J. Herskovits, influential social scientist of the day. (“I learned that what was right among the African Masai was wrong with the Eskimos. Later I saw that this was a treacherous doctrine—morality should be made of sterner stuff. But in my youth my head was turned by the study of erratic—or goofy—customs. In my early twenties I was a cultural relativist.”)
1936
Publishes pieces in
The Daily Northwestern
, signing himself “Saul Bellow.”
Publishes pieces in
The Daily Northwestern
, signing himself “Saul Bellow.”
1937
Named associate editor of
The Beacon
, a monthly for which he writes. James T. Farrell, famed author of
Studs Lonigan
, befriends him. Bellow graduates from Northwestern with B.A. in anthropology. Awarded graduate fellowship in Department of Sociology and Anthropology at University of Wisconsin, Madison; Rosenfeld already a doctoral student there.
Named associate editor of
The Beacon
, a monthly for which he writes. James T. Farrell, famed author of
Studs Lonigan
, befriends him. Bellow graduates from Northwestern with B.A. in anthropology. Awarded graduate fellowship in Department of Sociology and Anthropology at University of Wisconsin, Madison; Rosenfeld already a doctoral student there.
1938
After two semesters, abandons graduate study and returns to Chicago. Works briefly for the WPA, writing biographies of Midwestern writers. Marries Anita Goshkin of Lafayette, Indiana, prominent in Northwestern radical circles, daughter of immigrant Jews from Crimea, “straightforward, big-bosomed, and very assertive,” as Herb Passin would recall her. Bellow takes job at Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College on South Michigan Avenue, teaching courses in anthropology and English. Works of literature he assigns include novels by Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, Dreiser and Lawrence.
After two semesters, abandons graduate study and returns to Chicago. Works briefly for the WPA, writing biographies of Midwestern writers. Marries Anita Goshkin of Lafayette, Indiana, prominent in Northwestern radical circles, daughter of immigrant Jews from Crimea, “straightforward, big-bosomed, and very assertive,” as Herb Passin would recall her. Bellow takes job at Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College on South Michigan Avenue, teaching courses in anthropology and English. Works of literature he assigns include novels by Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, Dreiser and Lawrence.
1939
Sets to work on
Ruben Whitfield
, first attempt at a novel. “I met on the street a professor who put a difficult question to me. He, Dr. L, was a European scholar, immensely learned. Growing bald, he had shaved his head; he knew the great world; he was severe, smiling primarily because he had occasion to smile, not because anything amused him. He read books while walking rapidly through traffic, taking notes in Latin shorthand, using a system of his own devising. In his round, gold-rimmed specs, with rising wrinkles of polite inquiry, he asked, ‘Ah? And how is the
romancier
?’ The
romancier
was not so hot. The
romancier
’s ill-educated senses made love to the world, but he was as powerfully attached to silliness and squalor as to grandeur. His unwelcome singularity made his heart ache. He was, so far as he knew, the only full-time
romancier
in Chicago (apart from Nelson Algren), and he felt the queerness (sometimes he thought it the amputation) of his condition. [ . . . ] I am bound to point out that the market man, the furniture mover, the steamfitter, the tool-and-diemaker, had easier lives. They were spared the labor of explaining themselves.”
Sets to work on
Ruben Whitfield
, first attempt at a novel. “I met on the street a professor who put a difficult question to me. He, Dr. L, was a European scholar, immensely learned. Growing bald, he had shaved his head; he knew the great world; he was severe, smiling primarily because he had occasion to smile, not because anything amused him. He read books while walking rapidly through traffic, taking notes in Latin shorthand, using a system of his own devising. In his round, gold-rimmed specs, with rising wrinkles of polite inquiry, he asked, ‘Ah? And how is the
romancier
?’ The
romancier
was not so hot. The
romancier
’s ill-educated senses made love to the world, but he was as powerfully attached to silliness and squalor as to grandeur. His unwelcome singularity made his heart ache. He was, so far as he knew, the only full-time
romancier
in Chicago (apart from Nelson Algren), and he felt the queerness (sometimes he thought it the amputation) of his condition. [ . . . ] I am bound to point out that the market man, the furniture mover, the steamfitter, the tool-and-diemaker, had easier lives. They were spared the labor of explaining themselves.”
1940
Reads Stendhal. Also D. H. Lawrence’s
Mornings in Mexico
. Travels to Mexico City with Passin. (“We had an appointment with Trotsky and we came to the door of the house: an unusual amount of excitement. We asked for Trotsky and they said who are you, and we said we were newspapermen. They said Trotsky’s in the hospital. So we went to the hospital and we asked to see Trotsky and they opened the door and said, he’s in there, so we went in and there was Trotsky. He had just died. He had been assassinated that morning. He was covered in blood and bloody bandages and his white beard was full of blood.”)
Reads Stendhal. Also D. H. Lawrence’s
Mornings in Mexico
. Travels to Mexico City with Passin. (“We had an appointment with Trotsky and we came to the door of the house: an unusual amount of excitement. We asked for Trotsky and they said who are you, and we said we were newspapermen. They said Trotsky’s in the hospital. So we went to the hospital and we asked to see Trotsky and they opened the door and said, he’s in there, so we went in and there was Trotsky. He had just died. He had been assassinated that morning. He was covered in blood and bloody bandages and his white beard was full of blood.”)
1941
Short story “Two Morning Monologues” accepted by Philip Rahv for publication in
Partisan Review
.
Short story “Two Morning Monologues” accepted by Philip Rahv for publication in
Partisan Review
.
1942
Ruben Whitfield
evidently abandoned. Completed draft of another novel,
The Very Dark Trees
, accepted by William Roth of Colt Press; payment is one hundred fifty dollars. In New York, Bellow stays with Rosenfeld. (“On Seventy-sixth Street there sometimes were cockroaches springing from the toaster with the slices of bread. Smoky, the rakish little short-legged brown dog, was only partly housebroken and chewed books; the shades were always drawn (harmful sunlight!), the ashtrays spilled over.”) Engages literary agent Maxim Lieber and meets Alfred Kazin and Delmore Schwartz. Draft board defers Bellow twice owing to hernia. Forced to suspend operations at Colt Press. William Roth sends fifty-dollar consolation fee. Bellow burns manuscript of
The Very Dark Trees
. Reads and is influenced by Rilke’s
Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
(“When I find a writer like that he generally turns into a kind of underground song whose voice I hear all the time, day and night.”) Begins work on novel
The Notebook of a Dangling Man.
Ruben Whitfield
evidently abandoned. Completed draft of another novel,
The Very Dark Trees
, accepted by William Roth of Colt Press; payment is one hundred fifty dollars. In New York, Bellow stays with Rosenfeld. (“On Seventy-sixth Street there sometimes were cockroaches springing from the toaster with the slices of bread. Smoky, the rakish little short-legged brown dog, was only partly housebroken and chewed books; the shades were always drawn (harmful sunlight!), the ashtrays spilled over.”) Engages literary agent Maxim Lieber and meets Alfred Kazin and Delmore Schwartz. Draft board defers Bellow twice owing to hernia. Forced to suspend operations at Colt Press. William Roth sends fifty-dollar consolation fee. Bellow burns manuscript of
The Very Dark Trees
. Reads and is influenced by Rilke’s
Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
(“When I find a writer like that he generally turns into a kind of underground song whose voice I hear all the time, day and night.”) Begins work on novel
The Notebook of a Dangling Man.
1943
Fails to win Guggenheim Fellowship. Whittaker Chambers rejects his application for employment as film reviewer at
Time.
Gets part-time job at
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. (“Isaac Rosenfeld said that it cost less than a thousand dollars a year to be poor—you could make it on seven or eight hundred.”) Excerpt from novel in progress appears in
Partisan Review
. Is draft-deferred a third time.
Fails to win Guggenheim Fellowship. Whittaker Chambers rejects his application for employment as film reviewer at
Time.
Gets part-time job at
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. (“Isaac Rosenfeld said that it cost less than a thousand dollars a year to be poor—you could make it on seven or eight hundred.”) Excerpt from novel in progress appears in
Partisan Review
. Is draft-deferred a third time.
1944
Dangling Man
published by James Henle at Vanguard Press on March 23, 1944; praised by Edmund Wilson in
The New Yorker
as “one of the most honest pieces of testimony on the psychology of a whole generation who have grown up during the Depression and the war.” Anita gives birth to son Gregory in April. Henry Volkening, co-founder of literary agency Russell & Volkening, acting now as Bellow’s agent.
Dangling Man
published by James Henle at Vanguard Press on March 23, 1944; praised by Edmund Wilson in
The New Yorker
as “one of the most honest pieces of testimony on the psychology of a whole generation who have grown up during the Depression and the war.” Anita gives birth to son Gregory in April. Henry Volkening, co-founder of literary agency Russell & Volkening, acting now as Bellow’s agent.
1945
Accepted into Merchant Marine. Posted to Atlantic headquarters at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Following Japanese surrender, released to inactive status. Begins work on next novel,
The Victim
, “a story of guilt,” as he proposes it.
Accepted into Merchant Marine. Posted to Atlantic headquarters at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Following Japanese surrender, released to inactive status. Begins work on next novel,
The Victim
, “a story of guilt,” as he proposes it.
1946
Second application for Guggenheim Fellowship unsuccessful. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, hires him as assistant professor of English. Among senior colleagues is Robert Penn Warren, who will be lifelong friend. Also comes to know Hubert Humphrey, then mayor of Minneapolis.
Second application for Guggenheim Fellowship unsuccessful. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, hires him as assistant professor of English. Among senior colleagues is Robert Penn Warren, who will be lifelong friend. Also comes to know Hubert Humphrey, then mayor of Minneapolis.
1947
First trip to Europe: Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Granada.
The Victim
published in November by Vanguard. (“In writing
The Victim
I accepted a Flaubertian standard. Not a bad standard, to be sure, but one which, in the end, I found repressive [ . . . ] A writer should be able to express himself easily, naturally, copiously in a form which frees his mind, his energies. Why should he hobble himself with formalities? With a borrowed sensibility? With the desire to be ‘correct’? Why should I force myself to write like an Englishman or a contributor to
The New Yorker
? I soon saw that it was simply not in me to be a mandarin.”)
First trip to Europe: Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Granada.
The Victim
published in November by Vanguard. (“In writing
The Victim
I accepted a Flaubertian standard. Not a bad standard, to be sure, but one which, in the end, I found repressive [ . . . ] A writer should be able to express himself easily, naturally, copiously in a form which frees his mind, his energies. Why should he hobble himself with formalities? With a borrowed sensibility? With the desire to be ‘correct’? Why should I force myself to write like an Englishman or a contributor to
The New Yorker
? I soon saw that it was simply not in me to be a mandarin.”)
1948-49
Receives Guggenheim Fellowship. Publishes “Spanish Letter” in
Partisan Review
. Breaking with Vanguard Press, goes to Viking; Monroe Engel is his editor. Journeys with Anita and Gregory to Paris, their home for next two years. American friends and acquaintances there include Mary McCarthy, Lionel Abel, William Phillips, Herbert Gold, James Baldwin and Harold “Kappy” Kaplan, friend from early Chicago days. Through Kappy, meets Georges Bataille, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Czeslaw Milosz and Nicola Chiaromonte. Develops strong distaste for French intellectual life: “One of the things that was clear to me when I went to Paris on a Guggenheim grant was that
Les Temps Modernes
understood less about Marxism and left-wing politics than I had understood as a high-school boy.” Embarks on new work,
The Crab and the Butterfly
, then stalls. One spring morning while watching sanitation sweepers opening hydrants and sunlit water sparkling in gutters, resolves to write different sort of novel. (“I had walked away from the street-washing crew saying under my breath, ‘I am an American—Chicago-born.’ The ‘I’ in this case was not autobiographical. I had in mind a boyhood friend from Augusta Street in Chicago of the mid-Twenties. I hadn’t seen Augie since the late Twenties; the Forties were now ending. What had become of my friend, I couldn’t say. It struck me that a fictional biography of this impulsive, handsome, intelligent, spirited boy would certainly be worth writing. Augie had introduced me to the American language and the charm of that language was one of the charms of his personality. From him I had unwittingly learned to go at things free-style, making the record in my own way—first to knock, first admitted.”) In March 1949, publishes “Sermon by Dr. Pep” in
Partisan Review.
In October publishes “The Jewish Writer and the English Literary Tradition” in
Commentary
. In Rome, meets Ignazio Silone, Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante. Evenings at Antico Caffè Greco. Story “Dora” appears in
Harper’s Bazaar
. In December visits London; in addition to publisher John Lehmann, meets Cyril Connolly, Henry Green and Stephen Spender.
Receives Guggenheim Fellowship. Publishes “Spanish Letter” in
Partisan Review
. Breaking with Vanguard Press, goes to Viking; Monroe Engel is his editor. Journeys with Anita and Gregory to Paris, their home for next two years. American friends and acquaintances there include Mary McCarthy, Lionel Abel, William Phillips, Herbert Gold, James Baldwin and Harold “Kappy” Kaplan, friend from early Chicago days. Through Kappy, meets Georges Bataille, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Czeslaw Milosz and Nicola Chiaromonte. Develops strong distaste for French intellectual life: “One of the things that was clear to me when I went to Paris on a Guggenheim grant was that
Les Temps Modernes
understood less about Marxism and left-wing politics than I had understood as a high-school boy.” Embarks on new work,
The Crab and the Butterfly
, then stalls. One spring morning while watching sanitation sweepers opening hydrants and sunlit water sparkling in gutters, resolves to write different sort of novel. (“I had walked away from the street-washing crew saying under my breath, ‘I am an American—Chicago-born.’ The ‘I’ in this case was not autobiographical. I had in mind a boyhood friend from Augusta Street in Chicago of the mid-Twenties. I hadn’t seen Augie since the late Twenties; the Forties were now ending. What had become of my friend, I couldn’t say. It struck me that a fictional biography of this impulsive, handsome, intelligent, spirited boy would certainly be worth writing. Augie had introduced me to the American language and the charm of that language was one of the charms of his personality. From him I had unwittingly learned to go at things free-style, making the record in my own way—first to knock, first admitted.”) In March 1949, publishes “Sermon by Dr. Pep” in
Partisan Review.
In October publishes “The Jewish Writer and the English Literary Tradition” in
Commentary
. In Rome, meets Ignazio Silone, Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante. Evenings at Antico Caffè Greco. Story “Dora” appears in
Harper’s Bazaar
. In December visits London; in addition to publisher John Lehmann, meets Cyril Connolly, Henry Green and Stephen Spender.
1950
Lectures in April at Salzburg Seminars. Visits Venice, Florence, Rome, Positano and Capri. Returns to America in September and settles with family in Queens, New York. “Italian Fiction: Without Hope” in
The New Leader
; “Trip to Galena” in
Partisan Review
.
Lectures in April at Salzburg Seminars. Visits Venice, Florence, Rome, Positano and Capri. Returns to America in September and settles with family in Queens, New York. “Italian Fiction: Without Hope” in
The New Leader
; “Trip to Galena” in
Partisan Review
.
1951
“Dreiser and the Triumph of Art” ( review of F. O. Matthiessen’s
Theodore Dreiser
) in
Commentary.
Story “By the Rock Wall” in
Harper’s Bazaar
. In New York begins course of Reichian therapy with Dr. Chester Raphael. (“I turned into a follower of Wilhelm Reich and, for two years, I had this nude therapy on the couch, being my animal self. Which was a ridiculous thing for me to have done, but I was always attracted by these ridiculous activities.”) “Gide as Autobiographer” (review of André Gide’s
The Counterfeiters
) in
New Leader
. “Address by Gooley MacDowell to the Hasbeens Club of Chicago” in
Hudson Review
(reprinted in
Algren’s Book of Lonesome Monsters
, edited by Nelson Algren). Second visit to Salzburg.
“Dreiser and the Triumph of Art” ( review of F. O. Matthiessen’s
Theodore Dreiser
) in
Commentary.
Story “By the Rock Wall” in
Harper’s Bazaar
. In New York begins course of Reichian therapy with Dr. Chester Raphael. (“I turned into a follower of Wilhelm Reich and, for two years, I had this nude therapy on the couch, being my animal self. Which was a ridiculous thing for me to have done, but I was always attracted by these ridiculous activities.”) “Gide as Autobiographer” (review of André Gide’s
The Counterfeiters
) in
New Leader
. “Address by Gooley MacDowell to the Hasbeens Club of Chicago” in
Hudson Review
(reprinted in
Algren’s Book of Lonesome Monsters
, edited by Nelson Algren). Second visit to Salzburg.
1952
In spring term, lectures at Reed College and the Universities of Oregon and Washington. Meets Theodore Roethke and Dylan Thomas. Translates I. B. Singer’s “Gimpel the Fool” for
Partisan
, Singer’s first appearance in English. Bellow’s “Laughter in the Ghetto” (review of Sholem Aleichem’s
The Adventures of Mottel the Cantor’s Son
) in
Saturday Review of Literature.
Reviews Ralph Ellison’s
Invisible Man
for
Commentary
; Ellison and wife Fanny will be lifelong friends. In June, first residency at Yaddo, artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. In autumn, takes post at Princeton as Delmore Schwartz’s assistant and comes to know John Berryman, who will be among his greatest friends. (“What he mainly had on his mind was literature. When he saw me coming, he often said, ‘Ah?’ meaning that a literary discussion was about to begin. It might be
The Tempest
that he was considering that day, or
Don Quixote
; it might be Graham Greene or John O’Hara; or [Maurice] Goguel on Jesus, or Freud on dreams. [ . . . ] There was only one important topic. We had no small talk.”) “Interval in a Lifeboat,” extract from
Augie March,
published in
The New Yorker
. Meets Sondra Tschacbasov, newly graduated from Bennington College and working as receptionist at
Partisan
. (“I could have gone out with Philip Rahv or Saul,” she would later recall. “I chose Saul.”)
In spring term, lectures at Reed College and the Universities of Oregon and Washington. Meets Theodore Roethke and Dylan Thomas. Translates I. B. Singer’s “Gimpel the Fool” for
Partisan
, Singer’s first appearance in English. Bellow’s “Laughter in the Ghetto” (review of Sholem Aleichem’s
The Adventures of Mottel the Cantor’s Son
) in
Saturday Review of Literature.
Reviews Ralph Ellison’s
Invisible Man
for
Commentary
; Ellison and wife Fanny will be lifelong friends. In June, first residency at Yaddo, artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. In autumn, takes post at Princeton as Delmore Schwartz’s assistant and comes to know John Berryman, who will be among his greatest friends. (“What he mainly had on his mind was literature. When he saw me coming, he often said, ‘Ah?’ meaning that a literary discussion was about to begin. It might be
The Tempest
that he was considering that day, or
Don Quixote
; it might be Graham Greene or John O’Hara; or [Maurice] Goguel on Jesus, or Freud on dreams. [ . . . ] There was only one important topic. We had no small talk.”) “Interval in a Lifeboat,” extract from
Augie March,
published in
The New Yorker
. Meets Sondra Tschacbasov, newly graduated from Bennington College and working as receptionist at
Partisan
. (“I could have gone out with Philip Rahv or Saul,” she would later recall. “I chose Saul.”)
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