Southern Bookman

William Styron's Letters

"Selected Letters of William Styron" could be one of the last collections of written letters, a long and distinguished literary tradition. In the future, volumes of collected e-mails, tweets, text messages and Facebook posts may arise, though these will be unlikely to have the depth of thought and feeling and complexity of personality reflected in long letters written on paper. Would Keats have worked out his negative capability reflections using Twitter?

Styron's letters are his first draft of history about a life that has been thoroughly examined through the refined lens of biographers, critics, fellow writers, family members and Styron himself in memoirs and personal essays. As with other letters by famous people, Styron's reveal him with immediacy and frankness: caring, affectionate, serious, and tender as well as self-righteous, opinionated, vindictive, racist and sexist.

His widow, Rose Styron, edited the volume along with R. Blakeslee Gilpin. From William Styron's youth as a struggling writer through the rich years of his literary success to his sad final years beset by depression and other illnesses, the letters range from chatty and jokey messages to chums like Philip Roth, Willie Morris and Mia Farrow to earnest, detailed reports to intimates such as his father, William Sr., and his writing mentor at Duke, William Blackburn. Literary feuds, parties, conferences, politics and the editorial business of writing and publishing come alive.

He gives fewer thoughts on writing and literary theory than might be expected, although he often reflects on such matters as critical reaction to his books. A grievance that endured to death was the fierce criticism of some black critics to his "Confessions of Nat Turner" and some Jewish commentators to "Sophie's Choice."

The letters' conversational tone sounds close to Styron's speaking voice, giving the impression that he is there talking to you through every step of his life.

Chaucer's Enduring Gift

Chaucer's small crypt in Westminster Abbey is a striking memento a mori. Standing there looking at the stone box that holds his remains, I thought about how alive he and his characters are in "The Canterbury Tales." In his verse narrative, a prototype for imaginative literature from the English novel to Milton's epics and Shakespeare's plays, he describes an energetic London whose spirit remains in today's swirling streets of sound and color. His bones have lain in the old cathedral for hundreds of years, but walking outside into the city's life, I could imagine him still a part of it, bustling around, hearing snatches of conservation, hurrying to a tavern such as the one he mentions, the Tabard Inn.

Now, with another April arrived, I reread the General Prologue to his famous book, his hymn to the month and the renewal of spring as current today as when he first wrote it in 1386. While his language is archaic, his poetic force surges on, his words still expressing the reader's excitement at spring's arrival.

Chaucer's work is one of the foundations of the English language. He says at the start of his poem "Whan that April with its showers soote/The drought of March hath perced to the roote./And bathed every veine in swich licour, of which vertu engendred is the flowr; ..." His work is the root of English literature.

In Praise of "On The Road"

Salon ran an article on whether Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" is a great book, linked to the "On The Road" movie that's soon to be released.

"On The Road" is not a great novel, but it is a great book. Its flaw as a novel is that it lacks conflict among the characters, weakening its dramatic intensity. The book's structure doesn't follow the traditional narrative of a hero searching for redemption who overcomes a series of obstacles to reach his goal. The exuberant story of Sal Paradise's trips across country is pretty much absent of obstacles; it's a constant celebration of new experiences and sensations.

What I find great about "On The Road" is its ecstatic language, its espousal of a way of looking at the world as joyous and holy. To me, it shouldn't be looked on as a novel, but as a book of poetry, a work of sounds and impressionistic expression that's closer to jazz than a traditional novel. Kerouac's first book more closely followed the traditional model, but he sought something different with "On the Road." The book can be viewed as a magnificent failure, but any attempt to discount it as a work of art is misguided.

The Salon writer quotes an alleged Kerouac contemporary who claims that Kerouac turned against the word beat and that the expression Beat Generation has no validity. This is questionable, since Kerouac himself originated the word beat to refer to his contemporaries. Kerouac late in his short life did turn conservative and scorned the '60s hippie counterculture. But he is eternally a beat.

Kerouac's other work is also insufficiently appreciated. "Dharma Bums" is better as a novel than "On the Road." One of my favorite literary experiences was listening to a recording of "Dharma Bums" narrated by Allen Ginsberg. The book's set pieces, such as an account of an ascent up a mountain, do memorably follow the quest model. And, the characters achieve an individuality more complex than those in "On the Road." 

"On the Road" conveys a special time in American life, the post World War II era of the late 1940s when the United States enjoyed unprecedented freedom. Alas, the Soviet Union stealing the bomb and the resulting Cold War paranoia would end that freedom like a huge iron gate clanging shut. We're been searching for that freedom ever since, and "On The Road" is an essential guide. 

Farewell, Valerie Eliot

T.S. Eliot's widow, Valerie, known for giving the famed poet and critic happiness in his later years and zealously guarding his legacy, has died at age 86. Valerie, who was 38 years younger than Eliot, is the editor of his letters and a lauded edition of Eliot's "The Wasteland." That critical edition included a fascimile reproduction of the famed poem's manuscript, including changes suggested by Ezra Pound.

"The Wasteland," that earth-shattering icon of modernism, was the product of Eliot's horrible first marriage to the mentally unstable Vivienne Eliot. who died at a tragic young age. The Eliots' explosive marriage was the subject of the play and film "Tom and Viv," which, with the advent of feminism, cast Eliot at the villain.

Valerie, Eliot's secretary at the publishing firm Faber & Faber, defended Eliot against personal criticism such as that stirred up by the play. The release of Eliot's letters took years, and academic magpies accused Valerie of being too personally connected with the project. HIs letters revealed  his distressing anti-Semitism as well as a certain crude sexual humor.

He was certainly a complex, tortured man whose youth was wasted by mental problems. Valerie is among literature's heroes for comforting his final years, and her editing shows that she is a strong literary figure in her own right. Eliot was a complex figure. His work will long stand as one of the hallmarks of English literature, and Valerie has an honored place for preserving his legacy, although she did allow "Cats."

1962 Prize for "The Moviegoer" Holds Up

A recent Slate article looked back at how Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer" unexpectedly won the 1962 National Book Award over more well-known works like Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" and J.D. Salinger's "Franny and Zooey." The piece claimed the literary surprise was a scandalous fix engineered by A.J. Liebling and his wife, Jean Stafford, a member of the awards committee.

According to the article, Liebling discovered Percy's first book on trips to Percy's native Louisiana. Liebling went to Louisiana to report on Gov. Earl Long for the New Yorker, articles collected in the wonderful book "The Earl of Louisiana." One correction to the Slate piece: The writer calls Long a conservative, when he was one of the most liberal Southern politicians, as Liebling recounts. Anyway, the Slate writer claims that Liebling wanted Percy's book to win the award to show up publisher Alfred Knopf, who had feuded with Liebling. Knopf had not pushed "The Moviegoer," which Knoph published, so its winning the award would somehow show up Knopf, the writer says with convoluted logic.

The writer might be right about Liebling, but I have my doubts. First, Long died in 1960, and Liebling likely would have been done with his Louisiana forays long before "The Moviegoer" was published.

Stafford likely had another connection to Percy. Before marrying Liebling, she was married to Robert Lowell, a close friend of poet/critic Allen Tate and his wife, the novelist Caroline Gordon. Gordon, who remained a close friend of Stafford, was an early mentor of Percy, who turned to writing after his medical career was halted by tuberculosis. Gordon is a more likely champion of Percy's book to Stafford than Liebling.

It might not be relevant to the 1962 book award, but Stafford had her own Louisiana connection. Early in her marriage to Lowell, she moved to Baton Rouge in 1940 when Lowell went to study at LSU with Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks. The deeply talented Stafford was pressed into service as a secretary for Warren and Brooks' Southern Review. Lowell's friend Peter Taylor was also at LSU at the time. Taylor himself might have been the one who passed Percy's book to Stafford.

The Slate article assumes the truth of a literary conspiracy, only slightly raising the possibility that "The Moviegoer" won on its merits. After 50 years, the award holds up. "Catch 22" continues to be read, but a lot of it looks dated. "Franny and Zoey" is seen as quirky and its reputation has fallen along with Salinger's. "The Moviegoer" is the most enduring of the three books. "Catch 22 and "Franny and Zoey" are '60s artifacts. With its philosophical depth and timeless insights into human nature, "The Moviegoer" holds greater claim as a classic.

Happy Keats Day

Today is the autumn day I wait for all year, the one that matches the spirit of John Keats' "To Autumn," to my mind the most perfect poem in the language and an essential expression of Romanticism. With crisp wind, blue skies and the leaves nearing their peak of autumn color, today feels like the day Keats described so many years ago.

Lately, I've been slowly reading Nicholas Roe's new life of Keats, a frequent subject of biographers the past 50 years or so. Roe has uncovered many new details about Keats and exhaustively traces connections among Keats and his family and friends. He fills in a lot of gaps left open in previous biographies, and makes more than a few speculative leaps. The autumn connection is appropriate this week, Keats' birthday was Oct. 31, at least on his birth certificate. His family said he was born on Oct. 29, 1795, 217 years ago today.

I suppose covers are not protected by copyright: Roe's book uses the same cover illustration of Andrew Motion's earlier biography of Keats, Joseph Severn's painting of Keats on the heath listening to the nightingale (shown below from the cover of Motion's book).

Severn, who cared for Keats in his final months, was neglected by Keats in his early days as a poet, Roe says. Pretty much snubbing young Severn, Keats rather sucks up to the then lauded artist Benjamin Haydon. Along with details about Keats' friendship with Haydon, Roe comes up with copious information about Keats' first literary acquaintances, including the most important, Leigh Hunt, the poet/journalist/editor/critic and political agitator who did prison time because of his radical views. The prison stay doesn't sound too daunting; Hunt was able to bring to his cell many personal belongings and comfort items and receive visitors.

 Roe describes a scene I don't recall reading about before, a meeting between Shelley and Keats at Hunt's home. Shelley and Keats are entwined in literary history, through Shelley's eulogy to Keats and their joint burial in Rome's Protestant Cemetery. Older than both Keats and Shelley, Leigh outlived his young proteges by many years, eventually achieving the dubious immortality of being a model for one of Dickens' comic characters.

I've visited the Keats houses in Rome and Hampstead in London. Roe discloses a number of other locations for Keats, which made me desire to return to London and embark upon a Keats pilgrimage. Until then, I'll continue reading "To Autumn" and other Keats poems. 

One striking and thrilling detail about Keats' emergence is emphasized by Roe. The young poet for months wrote the kind of juvenile verse that other beginning poets produce, nothing distinguishable from the verse churned out by his early rival Reynolds, some of whose work Roe cites. Then, all of a sudden, Keats produces "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer," which displays the control and vivid language of his mature poems. Genius makes a stunning appearance, with little previous foreshadowing. Roe notes the advance, but doesn't delve deeply into its cause. Was it a rush of inspiration, or a new confidence in technique? Or a miracle that can be ascribed to the mystery of genius?

Keats would struggle with later poems, especially his "Endymion," and even poems like "Ode to A Nightingale" are marred by clumsy writing. "On Looking Into Chapman's Homer" however anticipates the mastery of "To Autumn."

1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Recalling Henry V, Agincourt on St. Crispin's Day

St. Crispin's Day recalls Shakespeare's Henry V and the British king's stirring victory over the French at Agincourt. King Harry's rousing speech to his outnumbered troops on the eve of battle in the patriotic play contributed the phrases "We Band of Brothers" and "the happy few" to the language. Robert Kennedy loved the "band of brothers" idea, and Stendahl dedicated "The Charterhouse of Parma" to the happy few, presumably those sophisticates who enjoy civilization's best.

The historic Agincourt has long fascinated me; at times I have felt the mystical sense that I was present at the battle on Oct. 26, 1425. Henry's ill and starving soldiers defeated a numerically superior French force. Reports vary on how much the British were outnumbered; it could have been as much as 5 to 1. The French also had a big edge in the number of horses. Some of Henry's men suffered from dysentery; unlike the beautiful uniforms and armor worn in films of the play, they fought naked, with watery shit running down their legs.

The British long-bow archers evened the odds, and battlefield luck did the rest. Henry stationed his archers on the sides, and their arrows spooked the French horses, which attacked from high ground and crashed into each other on a muddy, recently plowed field. The British also created a fortress with sharpened stakes from trees. With the French entangled with their fallen horses, many of them crushed into the mud and drowning, the British ran up to slaughter them, swinging swords and axes.

Another intriguing aftermath of the battle is that Henry ordered the killing of French prisoners, a severe violation of chivalric rules of battle. The controversy has raged through the centuries as to how many French nobles were killed and whether Henry was justified. Shakespeare himself gives a propaganda-ist defense of Henry.

The French military elite were decimated on that day. The tragedy echoes into the future; the English stood with the French in World Wars I and II, when French losses recalled the ancient debacle.

You Tube videos of Henry's St. Crispin's Day speech abound; one of the best is by Kenneth Branagh, from his Henry V movie of a few years ago.

Valdosta Nights: Football Life in a Southern Town

Drew Jubera's "Must Win: A Season of Survival for a Town and Its Team" goes beyond its hyperbolic title with a rich, in-depth look at a small Southern city and its passion for high school football.

More than just a sports book, "Must Win" uses the 2010 Valdosta Wildcats season to examine education, race, religion, teen life, religion, hip hop, poverty, and urban problems. Along with that, sports fans will find a wealth of high school football lore.

Jubera, a longtime colleague of mine at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, spent a year in Valdosta to chronicle the Wildcats' 2010 season under new coach Rance Gillespie, hired to restore the Wildcats' declining football dynasty.

Once nationally known as the country's top high school football power under legendary coaches Wright Bazemore and Nick Hyder, Valdosta had declined in the 1990s after Hyder's unexpected death, of a heart attack in the school's cafeteria at lunchtime. With white flight and a falling population, the old inner-city school had watched nearby Lowndes County High rise in wealth and football power.

Jubera presents an engaging history of the town's football rise and fall, giving fascinating details of the city's and region's past and present along the way. Valdosta, on the eastern edge of U.S. 84 football crescent that swings through south Georgia, is the last stop on i-75 before tourists reach Florida. That geographical distinction has allowed the city to build a tourism industry based on interstate hotels and restaurants. Jubera delves into the area's agricultural past of turpentine production, when black workers were brutally exploited. He shows how that past echoes into the present day, when many black members of the Valdosta team are beset by poverty and violence.

The book is populated by an interesting group of characters, from longtime Valdosta boosters desperate to restore the glory days to football-addicted coaches and stressed teachers and parents. The most memorable characters are the handful of players whom Jubera highlights in heartbreaking, funny and endearing ways.

At times, Jubera's attempts at hip-hop flavored effects fall short, but those are rare blemishes. "Must Win's" intensely regional focus, as with Faulkner, gives it universal appeal. The book deserves national attention and readership.

Farewell Alex Karras, with memories of George Plimpton and "Paper Lion"

I just happened to see a web page report that Detroit Lions and later TV star Alex Karras has died. I associate Karras, the Lions' all-pro defensive lineman in the1960s, with one of my best childhood reading experiences, George Plimpton's "Paper Lion."

My parents subscribed for a time to the Book of the Month Club, and one of the hardbacks that arrived in a form fitted cardboard box was Plimpton's account of trying out for quarterback with the Lions. The zany Karras, who took to playing made up comic Nazi characters to ward off training camp boredom, was a star of the book, one of the first hits in the emerging literary sports-book genre. I can still remember the book's dust jacket, with a photo of the shaggy-haired Plimpton in his Lions uniform, No. 0, as I recall. Plimpton discussed his humiliation at trying to play quarterback for the Lions, who good naturedly accepted him, finishing with an account of his actual appearance in an exhibition game. The book was one of the first "New Journalism" works I read and remains one of the best.

Karras later starred in the movie version of the book, launching him on his acting career highlighted by the TV show "Webster." In the show, he and his TV wife adopted a black kid. I have a few impressions of the show, including that I had a mini-crush on the woman who played his TV wife.

I also knew Karras from my father's subscription to Sports Illustrated; he along with the Packers' Paul Hornung was suspended for a year by NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle for gambling ties. That was one of the big sports stories of the early '60s. I also recall Karras from another memorable childhood experience, watching on Thanksgiving Day as the Lions upset the undefeated Packers, totally dominating the Pack in one of the most amazing sporting events of my youth. Back then, the NFL always delivered unexpected excitement.

 The Packers went on to finish that season with only one loss. I don't remember if they played in the first Super Bowl that year, or whether that came later, and just winning the NFL championship was the thing. While I liked the Packers, the Bears and other NFL teams, I really loved the AFL, to me the most exciting football ever played.

When I was a kid reading Plimpton's account of trying out for the Lions, little did I know that Plimpton was the Paris Review's editor, and that I would later have a lifelong adult readership of the journal. At several times in my life, beginning in my college days, I have subscribed to the PR, and have continued reading it ever since. I've read many memoirs about Plimpton's New York and Paris literary days, but my  favorite  memory of him will always be as the New York writer seeking to play quarterback for the Lions. Farewell, Alex, who came to life in Plimpton's book, a great literary character as well as a great player and a fine comic actor.

Gay Talese Enters the Bunker, and The New Yorker

Gay Talese, who's rarely if ever published in The New Yorker during his illustruous career, broke into the august magazine a couple of weeks ago with a profile of New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi. In tandem with the piece, The New Yorker web site ran a video of Talese giving a tour of his "bunker," his writing office located in the basement below the New York townhome he shares with his wife, Nan, the noted book publisher.

To enter his retreat, Talese must walk down the stairs of his townhome, traverse a few steps on the sidewalk, then go down a few more stairs to a room that once served as a wine cellar. The video shows Talese making this short jaunt. Once in his hideaway, Talese displayed a glee in his work, and clothing.

The dapper, elegantly graying man, saying his haberdashery derives from his Italian heritage, sported a beige suit, blue striped shirt, yellow tie and staw fedora. His soundproof office, which lacks a phone, is crammed with files of Talese's work for five decades. He gave a demonstration of his reporting methods, how he interviews his subjects without taking notes, then immediately writes down the conversation on pieces of cardboard specifically cut to fit his jacket pockets. Connecting to  his sylish clothes, the cardboard looked like the kind cleaners place into startched shirts. I was somewhat surprised to see Talese working on a desktop computer; I half-expected him to be of the old school that still works on a typewriter, or even writes longhand. That Talese in his 70s remains so vital and attractive is inspiring.

Much of Talese's classic work was done for Esquire magazine. It's good that the New Yorker is now accepting Talese's pieces; editor David Remnick has opened the magazine to a wider variety of writers.

The piece on Girardi displays the controlled qualities of masters like Talese, who uses simple declarative sentences and well-chosen facts such as hitting statistics to build an interesting, understated narrative. His profile reminded me of the work of another master long associated with The New Yorker, John McPhee.

Talese, McPhee and Robert Caro are among a generation of writers who gave heightened literary quality to nonfiction writing. Tom Wolfe is another illustrous member of that generation, who, however, has turned to novel writing late in his career.

With eulogies of print continuing, a new generation of writers such as Katherine Boo and Michael Lewis have continued producing vital nonfiction works, continuing in the path of Talese, McPhee, Caro and others.

The recent death of legendary New York Times publisher Punch Sulzberger made me want to go back to Talese's classic book "The Power and the Glory," about how Sulzberger revitalized the Times. Seeing the video of Talese in his work space increased my desire to revisit that book, along with Talese's other work, such as his Esquire pieces on Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra. Talese is such an epitome of New York style and culture, that it's striking to remember that he is a proud graduate of the University of Alabama.