Re: pynchon/salinger letters in nytimes article
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Mon, 23 Mar 1998 01:24:13 -0500
People wrote:
> > I really first encountered this issue when I started really studying James
> > Joyce. Many of his letters had been published before his death, but
> > selectively, by Richard Ellmann. After Joyce's death Ellmann published All
> > the letters--even the erotica James wrote to Nora during their early
>periods
> > of separation. Much of the content of the letters was pretty
>embarrassing for
> > the family. I remember thinking as I was reading some of it, "Did I
> > **really** need to know that?" I decided I didn't. The hell with
> > scholarship. I don't need most of Joyce's letters to understand the
>content
> > of his fiction, and his is probably more consciously autobiographical than
> > that of most authors.
>
> I agree. I'm a huge Joyce fan and I didn't consciously seek out the
>letters, but
> Brenda Maddox incorporated them into her biography of his wife Nora,
>which is a
> great book, so tightly, but even though it was embarrassing to read the
>letters I
> could tell that she was trying to make all sorts of psychological
>connections with
> his personal habits and the metastructure of his text which might
>genuinely be
> something which might enrich the reading experience of the reader.
>However, some
> (like me) would call it rationalization, some would call it being
>voyeurism. After
> I finished the book I noticed that my fervor for wanting to study Joyce
>became
> very recessed and pretty much satiated my appetite for whatever groupie
> inclinations I ever had for him.
I agree with Malcolm about the Clinton insanity, but confess that for
non-prurient, flat-out romantic reasons, Joyce's letters were of great
interest to me. Love letters may be the most difficult things to write
without sounding like a dolt, and I admired seeing how Joyce -- one of our
writers who seemed NEVER to shy from the difficult -- took to it.
And as someone who has himself written a love letter or two, I was
intrigued to see how a writer whose work I love expressed himself in so
challenging an arena. I didn't feel like a voyeur, though, or a fetishist.
I felt I was seeing an artist figure out a way to combine his artistry and
his personal feelings in a way that made sense to him and Nora. If it
makes sense to us (or just me), so much the better.
As I said before, as a reader I would like to visit the Morgan Library this
week. But if it means that the library's decisions will make writers I
admire squirm much less, fine. I admire the writers too much, and am
patient enough, to wait. And wait. And wait.
--tim
P.S. I must say that this brief note alone was extraordinarily difficult
to write without dropping in one or more inadvertent double-entendres.
Talk about a mine field!