Southern Bookman

Farewell, Jan Morris

Jan Morris, whose change from male to female shook international culture in the early 1960s, led a life of extraordinary courage and literary accomplishment.

The acclaimed journalist, historian, travel writer and memoirist died Friday at 94 in a hospital near her home in North Wales, according to media reports.

Born male and named James Morris, she believed from early childhood that she was female. Despite her conviction that she was of the wrong gender, she as James Morris served as an British army intelligence officer in World War II, was a husband and father, and achieved fame as the journalist who broke the story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay ascending Mount Everest.

James Morris as a London Times reporter accompanied Hillary on his 1953 Everest expedition, leaving before reaching the summit to break the news with a coded message, first transported by a runner. The story ran on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.

As a reporter for the Guardian, Morris also broke a major story about French involvement in the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis, in which Israel and Egypt went to war over Egyptian leader Gamel Nasser's nationalization of the canal.

The success of Morris' cultural history "Venice" in 1960 allowed him to leave newspaper journalism and write books full-time.

On his trips to the Italian coastal city, he'd begun taking hormones to change to female, completing the transition with an operation in Casablanca in 1972.

Jan Morris' account of the change, "Condundrum," touched off a cultural controversy, including a notorious review by Rebecca West castigating Morris for becoming female.

Morris' act of supreme courage gained increasing acceptance through the years, no longer overshadowing Morris' accomplishments as a writer. Her three-volume history "Pax Britannica" is considered a major work, and her travel writing and essays are acclaimed.

While some critics, following West, see James Morris and Jan Morris as separate writers, with different sensibilities, I consider her career a continuum, showing a unified consciousness. Along with writers like Samuel Johnson, George Eliot, Charles Lamb, Virginia Woolf and others, her work will continue to be read.

 

 

 

 

T.S. Eliot's letters to Emily Hale give unflattering portrait

T.S. Eliot might have found happiness by marrying Emily Hale.

Eliot chose instead a disastrous marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood. But Eliot deeply loved Hale, a passion mainly carried out through letters he obsessively wrote her, beginning in 1930 and ending in acrimony in 1957.

In a major event for Eliot scholars, the poet's 1,1131 letters to Hale deposited at Princeton's Firestone Library were unsealed in January 2020. Hale dismayed Eliot in 1956 when she gave the letters to the library. Under terms of the deal, they were to be sealed until 50 years after her death. She died in 1969, four years after Eliot's death.

Along with online viewing, a selection of the letters edited by John Haffenden will be published next year.

Eliot in a 1960 statement released in January along with the unsealing of the letters sought to justify his decision to marry Haigh-Wood in 1915 rather than Hale, with whom he was in love.

"To her (Haigh-Wood), the marriage brought no happiness...to me,, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.,"  Eliot said. "And it saved me from marrying Emily Hale. Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me; Vivienne nearly was the death of me, but she kept the poet alive."

Paul Keegan in the Oct. 22 London Review of Books gives an exhaustive account of Eliot's relationship with Hale, which Keegan says resumed in earnest in 1930 when Hale visited London and came to tea with Eliot and his wife. Hale and Eliot began a correspondence which grew into a stream of letters from Eliot.

Eliot met with Hale several times before separating from Haigh-Wood, who died in 1947 after several years in a mental hospital. Eliot never divorced Haigh-Wood, forestalling any plans to marry Hale. Although he expressed sexual desire for Hale, their relationship apparently remained platonic.

After Haigh-Wood's death, Eliot again spurned Hale, although they continued to write each other until 1957, when Eliot married his secretary, Valerie Fletcher. Eliot  later claimed that he was no longer in love with Hale. The rejection caused Hale a nervous breakdown.

Another cause of the rejection was Eliot's strict religious beliefs; he was upset at Hale participating in Episcopal Church communion although she was Unitarian, as Keegan relates.

While Eliot's detailed letters to Hale are like an autobiography,  scholars don't have Hale's letters to Eliot. He destroyed them in 1960, perhaps in anger at her Princeton gift.

Or he realized that Hale's letters would give as negative a portrait of him as his letters to her. The letters reveal Eliot as manipulative, self-absorbed and cruel, according to Keegan's article.

Eliot's assertion that Hale would have killed the poet in him was unfounded. Still, had he married her, it's unlikely that he would have written "The Waste Land."

Was that masterpiece worth all of that pain? His letters to Hale detail the cost.

 

 

Tony Kornheiser in the attic makes for memorable TV

Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on Thursday marked the 19th anniversary of their ESPN gabfest, "Pardon the Interruption."

Covid-19 has brought a new dimension to the program: Kornheiser broadcasting from the attic of his home while Wilbon's stationed in the show's Washington studio, or his places in Chicago or Arizona.

A softer, more melancholy Kornheiser, with flashes of his old curmudgeonly wit, has become a cultural icon of America in quarantine.

Wearing a jaunty straw fedora in his closing "happy time" segment, and always immaculately dressed in coat and tie, Kornheiser expresses our work-at-home resilience.

Enjoying Kornheiser and Wilbon's odd-couple neo-vaudeville act through the years, along with exasperation at Wilbon's shameless name-dropping and homerism, I regret Kornheiser's loss to American print journalism.

While Kornheiser's a brilliant TV humorist/commentator, he was one of America's best newspaper columnists when he wrote for the Washington Post.

Along with producing two sports columns a week, he wrote a satiric piece for the Sunday Post's Style section. His barbs, one-liners and capsule commentaries sparkled and stung like those of San Francisco's Herb Caen.

I remember going up to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's library on dinner breaks to read Kornheiser's Sunday Style columns. While enjoying Kornheiser's TV performances, I also wish he would have progressed as a writer, with a career similar to that of novelist and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen.

Fellow sportswriter Bob Ryan at the close of PTI spinoff "Around the Horn" Thursday saluted Kornheiser and Wilbon's achievement. But in calling PTI the progenitor of ESPN talk shows, Ryan neglected the pioneering "Sports Reporters."

For years, the Sunday morning panel show showcased sportswriters like Mitch Albom, Mike Lupica, John Feinstein and Bill Conlin.

First hosted by great writer and TV commentator Dick Schapp, and later by the urbane John Saunders, the show offered cerebral conversation rather than the faux contentiousness of "PTI" and "Around the Horn." Kornheiser and Ryan often appeared on "The Sports Reporters."

Broadcasting from home, the 72-year-old Kornheiser has given "PTI" a new resonance. While jousting with Wilbon with his old sarcasm, Kornheiser also displays the melancholy wisdom of a Jewish sage.

Kornheiser in the attic is vintage TV. I just hope he's spending his extra time at home writing his memoirs, a likely classic of American journalism.

 

 

Thomas Friedman pushes another dubious corporate utopia

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman took a break from presidential politics Wednesday to fashion one of his fantasies about the brave new economic world.

Friedman once again served as the mouthpiece for one of his favorite corporate pals, Infosys President Ravi Kumar, who gave Friedman his "world is flat" theme.

Infosys, founded in India but now based in covid-19-staggered New York City, is one of those new age consulting companies that help other corporations squeeze out profits more efficiently by ramping up "worker productivity."

Kumar filled Friedman's mind with visions of the post-pandemic world, in which workers will need constant refurbishing of unnamed skills so that they can toil at home carrying out some kind of corporate "modular" projects. The column didn't say what kind of tasks would be done by these happy domestic workers.

Sounded like corporate feudalism. In other words, an expansion of the contract worker model, without corporate benefits. Presumably, government health care would replace private insurance plans.

Friedman quoted Kumar as saying that unidentified technical skills are now more valued than university degrees, and that Infosys and other companies are investing in their own education programs, bypassing colleges.

Sure, Infosys still hires plenty of university-trained engineers, but the company also likes some kind of self-taught savants. All you need is to push a button on the robot assembly line, I suppose. Those rosy scenarios were sweetened by vintage Friedman chestnuts like "adaptive coalitions."

After this endorsement of technical education, Friedman made the contradictory assertion that corporations still will need workers who possess the kind of creative thinking traditionally developed by college liberal arts educations.

Perhaps old-fashioned degrees will have a place after all. Left unsaid was what kind of role public education will play.

Nor did the column say anything about the future of artificial intelligence, one of Infosys' main consulting areas. With robots doing more and more jobs, what will humans do in their cozy home workplaces?

Also missing was any mention of climate change, a curious omission since that's become a major Friedman theme.

Friedman's acclamation of Kumar's corporate utopia left huge gaps. The vision of workers constantly learning new skills to carry out the corporate agenda sounded more oppressive than liberating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New books by DeLillo, Amis show writers in decline

I'm tempted to read new books by Don DeLillo and Martin Amis, although my infatuation with both writers died several years ago.

For years, the arrival of a new DeLillo book exhilarated me. But the horrible 2003 novel "Cosmopolis" shattered DeLillo 's spell. His novels ever since, including the Sept. 11 book "Falling Man," read like DeLillo parodying himself.

Amis' memoir, "Experience," is high on my list of all-time favorite books, and his early novels merit the critical acclaim they've received.

But "Yellow Dog" in 2003 and "The Pregnant Widow" in 2010 were two of the worst novels ever published. If written by an unknown author, they would have been rejected.

I did like the verbal energy of the 2012 book "Lionel Asbo, State of England," which many critics panned. But Amis lost control of his narrative.

Now, DeLillo has come out with the 117-page "Silence," which sounds like DeLillo light. An excerpt published in Harper's magazine had dialogue that resembled a bad Saturday Night Live sketch.

While the book was disparaged in the first wave of reviews, DeLillo has recently made some interesting comments in several interviews, including one in Sunday's New York Times magazine. The interviews raised my interest level a bit, but not enough to try to read the book.

Amis' "Inside Story; How to Write" awkwardly blends memoir and fiction, according to the critical consensus so far.

I'm somewhat intrigued by the book because it revisits material from "Experience" such as Amis' friendship with the late Christopher Hitchens, Saul Bellow and Philip Larkin, the close friend of Amis' father, Kingsley Amis.

The book also looks back his youthful affair with an older woman, who might be based on noted biographer Clair Tomalin, who reputedly had a relationship with Amis when they both worked at the New Statesman.

But the mixture of fiction, memoir and writing advice sounds like another self-indulgent exercise by Amis. As with DeLillo, Amis appears a declining writer seeking to cash in on his fame.

Besides, reading books seems more and more futile as American democracy hurtles toward an irrevocable crisis.

 

 

New York Times drama critic Ben Brantley says goodbye

When a major production opened on Broadway, I couldn't wait to read Ben Brantley's review in The New York Times.

I almost felt like I was a character in "All About Eve," devouring the newspaper in Sardi's.

Brantley connected me to the excitement of New York City's theater world. Along with rendering his judgment on well-publicized plays and musicals, Brantley gave attention to emerging playwrights and off-Broadway productions.

With New York's theaters darkened by Covid-19, Brantley left the Times last week after 24 years as its chief drama critic. Co-chief critic Jesse Green remains to write about whatever theater news comes along with the theaters shuttered.

In a farewell interview with Green in Sunday's New York Times, Brantley looked back on his career and his immense power over a production's success and failure. He recalled memorable performances, feuds with famous actors and the magic of the theater.

Despite the rise in touristy jukebox musicals and Hollywood-star vehicles, Brantley noted an increase in artistically ambitious Broadway productions before the pandemic. Brantley's work played a significant role in raising the level of quality.

Brantley in departing expressed hope that a vibrant New York theater will return. His career is a testament to what we've lost.

 

 

AJC sportswriter D. Orlando Ledbetter witnesses another Falcons downfall

How fitting that longtime AJC Falcons beat writer D. Orlando Ledbetter broke the news that coach Dan Quinn and GM Thomas Dimitroff were fired.

Ledbetter has been through all of the Falcons' ups and downs for more than a decade. He covered the crash of Michael Vick, and wrote about the heralded arrival of Quinn and Dimitroff.

When the Falcons flew a 28-3 lead to the Patriots in the 2017 Super Bowl, Ledbetter was there to dissect the disaster. Late Sunday, he closed the book on Quinn and Dimitroff's once-promising Falcons era.

Although I'm a Saints fan, I sympathize with Falcons followers. With his sad bloodhound face, Blank has been pushing the rock up the mountain and watching it fall back to the bottom for years.

Sunday afternoon after Matt Ryan's game-killling interception gave the Falcons an 0-5 start to the season, Blank on the sidelines in his dark three-piece suit looked like an undertaker.

Ledbetter is among a stalwart crew of AJC sportswriters who've been chronicling the Atlanta sports scene for decades. After all of the newspaper's changes, Ledbetter keeps marching on along with Tim Tucker, Steve Hummer and Mark Bradley.

Columnists Hummer and Bradley have seen the comings and goings of generations of players. They saw Braves Chipper Jones and Brian McCann progress from fresh-faced kids to seasoned veterans.

While they watched from the press box, Glavine, Smoltz and Maddux pitched themselves into the Hall of Fame. Hummer and Bradley have told AJC readers about Matt Ryan's hits and misses, and Jeff Francoeur's shooting-star rise and fall from his high school days in Gwinnett County to the major leagues. The columnists' careers have spanned many afternoons of UGA and Georgia Tech football.

Reading Tucker's recent pieces on the Braves playing the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, I marveled to recall that Tucker as a brilliant young beat writer captured the joy and sorrow of the Braves' 1982 season, when they won the Western Division title and lost the National League Championship Series  to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The man who followed the exploits of Dale Murphy and Bob Horner now writes about Ronald Acuna Jr., Freddie Freeman and Marcell Ozuna.

And Ledbetter will be there to report on Blank bringing in yet another miracle worker who promises to lead the Falcons to a long-sought Super Bowl victory.

 

Farewell, Eddie Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen didn't seem to take himself too seriously, as if his talent were as much of a surprise to him as anyone else.

Despite his image as a decadent rock star, the guitar virtuoso was dedicated to his playing. As a heavy-metal musician, he set a standard comparable to that of a classical pianist or violinist. His death Tuesday from cancer at age 65 was noted in a front-page New York Times obituary.

When I was trying to master acoustic guitar, Van Halen inspired me with a guitar magazine article on practicing. I made progress by following his advice to build technique one or two notes at a time.

I wasn't a big fan of his music, but admired his technique and guitar innovations. He was my unlikely model; I wanted to play like Eddie Van Halen.

 

Atlanta newspaper memories

Monday marks the 39th anniversary of the day I started work at The Atlanta Journal, which "covered Dixie like the dew."

Driving home down Peachtree Road Monday morning with the happy news that my new pacemaker's keeping my heart in rhythm, I remembered all of my newspaper colleagues who've passed away since that similarly sunny October morning when I began my Atlanta career.

I was a newlywed, recently moved with my bride to Atlanta. The Journal was a separate afternoon newspaper, publishing three editions a day, not yet mortally wounded by declining circulation.

The afternoon newspaper still dominated the local market despite the national recognition given the Constitution's Ralph McGill. In Atlanta, Journal sports columnist Furman Bisher was king.

When I began working the 4 a.m. shift, the Journal and Constitution ran separate newsrooms on different floors at the dreary gray newspaper building at 72 Marietta St. in downtown Atlanta. Visitors could freely come and go, unimpeded by guards, who came later.

Sportswriters from each paper followed the Falcons, Braves, Hawks and college football. Competing reporters covered state and local government. Separate Journal and Constitution critics gave their opinions on theater, the movies, pop music and the Atlanta Symphony.

The newspapers were not a cash cow for the Cox family, they were a cash hippopotamus. The Thanksgiving paper was so full of ads that we had to start working on it in September. With so much space having to be filled, separate sections examined obscure subjects such as the history of the Balkans.

With the Journal bleeding circulation as the intown population plunged and suburban areas boomed, the staffs merged in a couple of years, with bitter rivals unhappily turned into colleagues. News operations were placed on the Journal's old sixth floor, and features thrown together on the Consti's eighth.

For a few years, the papers came out under separate brands, produced by the merged staff. The Journal, with its own day-shift news desk, still put out an early metro edition for news boxes, and the "final home" for home delivery.

Then came the street "blue streak" edition, which because of its before noon deadline lacked any news that broke in early afternoon that TV would report that evening.

The newspapers' editorial-page staffs remained separate, oddly mismatched for their separate audiences.

The liberal Constitution had larger circulation in the more conservative suburbs, while the conservative Journal had more readers in the liberal inner city.

When the newspapers reached the peak of their power before and after the 1996 Olympics, the Internet was the small creature scurrying along the jungle floor.

A few newspaper people began to realize that was was then called the World Wide Web offered advantages in presenting advertising and news.

The AJC presciently launched a pay-wall Internet site, too quickly abandoned. Now paid online subscriptions offer the most promising future for old media companies.

Sept. 11, 2001, gave The Journal a final blaze of glory, with the late old-school newspaperman Frank Hyland writing a masterful article about the attack, beating anything the next morning's Constitution produced after hours of editorial planning. Then, like the World Trade Center, the Journal was gone.

Abandoning downtown for the suburbs, the AJC staggered on, hemorrhaging circulation and ad revenue.

Now, with a much smaller staff, the newspaper marches on. Several of my former colleagues still bravely carry out their mission. Each morning, I walk outside to find the AJC at the end of my driveway.

 

 

J.C. says farewell to Times Literary Supplement's NB column

The Times Literary Supplement's NB column on the back page of each issue is a light dessert at the end of a heavy meal.

For years, a witty and learned writer who called himself J.C. penned the column, presumably named after the Latin term Nota Bene.

J.C. in his Sept. 18 column delivered the melancholy news that it would be his last.

In saying farewell, J.C. revealed that he is James Campbell, the Scottish author of several books including a biography of James Baldwin and a study of Beat writers.

Campbell didn't give a reason for his leaving. NB continues under a different writer with the initials M.C.

A gem of British stylishness, J.C.'s column was like a letter from a brilliant friend. J.C. reported on his "perambulations" to find rare books at quirky bookstores, and gave attention to obscure literary publications such as a quarterly devoted to Victorian novelist George Gissing.

He also carried out jests like the imaginary TLS stylebook for freelancers, giving valuable writing lessons along the way, and satirized literary prizes and academic writing.

Another amusing feature was his contests, such as asking readers for TLS references in literature.

Campbell's exit follows the recent naming of Martin Ivens as TLS' editor to replace Stig Abell, who in a brief period made over the venerable review's layout. With a few typographical glitches and shorter reviews, the literary quality remained high under Abell, who also added book excerpts to the editorial mix, and tightened the letters page.

J.C.'s leaving is the first move of Ivens' first few weeks on the job.

In recent columns, J.C. spoke out against literary censorship stemming from racial and gender sensitivities. He criticized Poetry magazine for firing its editor for publishing a poem that blacks found objectionable. Whether J.C.'s unfashionable opinions led to his ouster has not been reported.

We hope that Campbell's happy perambulations continue, and that his writing again appears in the TLS and other publications.