The Story of the Yale Literary Magazine

Richard Brookhiser A MUGGING IN THE GROVES: THE STORY OF THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE Yale giveth, and Yale taketh away. X he publicity generated by the strug- parents, taking advantage of a Jewish gave three of his translations to the full color art reproductions, and gles of the Yale Literary Magazine with ancestor, had left the Soviet Union floundering Lit. combed the back issues of American Yale University is, in part, a testament during the detente emigrations, and By then time had run out on the and English magazines for congenial to the American caste system. A fight come to New York in 1972. They gave magazine, at least as far as its writers. over the Yellow Book of a land-grant up a comfortable, indeed a privileged, publishers were concerned. The Ban- Their plans required large infusions college or a Baptist seminary would life; Andrei's father, Lev, was a suc- ner had offered it to the Elizabethan of cash. The new editors compiled a probably not make "Sixty Minutes" cessful translator, and Gromyko had Club, a campus literary society, which list of Lit alumni from old mastheads and the New York Times. It has also been one of the neighbors. Andrei had wouldn't touch it. Schwarz was slated and sent out a solicitation. With the been treated, with some justification, never had to attend a Soviet school. to be editor in the fall of 1978, but, money that came in they paid a deposit as a political issue—liberals quashing I first met Navrozov when he was a Liberman recalls, "there wasn't going on a four-color brochure, which went conservative dissent. freshman. He had a mustache, which to be a next edition, unless the Banner to the entire Yale alumni list. One Mostly, it offers a window into the he has since, mercifully, shaved off. managed to sell it." The reverie was thousand old Blues paid up front. In world of the academy: a view of how He spoke in headlong rushes, unfin- suddenly and unexpectedly within the spring of 1979, they got the first things happen, and to whom. ished sentences piling into each other, reach. In July 1978, Yale Banner issue of the new editors. like skidding cars. In his free time, be- Publications, Inc. sold the copyright, The magazine Navrozov wanted to tween fitful bursts of schoolwork, he assets, and good will of the Yale work for began with its weakest translated Russian poetry. He had a Literary Magazine to Navrozov, feature, "Leader," an editorial which A he Yale Literary Magazine is the smallish circle of friends, to whom he Schwarz, and Liberman for one dollar. read like a foreign-language "Talk of oldest collegiate periodical in America,* stuck closely, among them Liberman "We were immediately in a state of the Town," imperfectly translated in- indeed the oldest continuously and Schwarz. One of their daydreams, panic," Navrozov remembers. "We to English. ("We knew genius when we published magazine—since 1821—of hardly a plan, was to run a journal. "It worked eighteen hours a day." Their saw Philip Larkin's twelve-line poem any kind. In its palmy days, it was a seemed like it would be a good way to ; goal was a high-brow journal with a 'The Trees.' We rushed off in search campus institution of importance. spend my life," Liberman recalled ! national audience, and a top quality for more novities of the same When critic Maynard Mack (Yale '32) later. "I would be able to do in- format. "We wanted to make it into kind . ") Things improved con- worked on it, there were twelve hun- teresting things with friends." In the the sort of magazine that we would siderably thereafter. One poem by a dred paying student subscribers. spring of his senior year, Navrozov want to work for." They envisioned Yale junior; one that came in over the "Subscribing to it was one of the transom; seven that were solicited; things you did. We were well-heeled. four translated by Navrozov (he has We once gave the Banner [the year- not contributed to the magazine since). book] $1,000 to help them survive." Pensees by the French essayist E.M. By the sixties, the palmy days had Cioran. Art work by Igor Galanin, a long gone. The Lit went bankrupt in fellow emigre; on the cover, four 1969, and was acquired by the once- women, skating among gold and silver indigent Banner. Money wasn't all it tree trunks (the author of the accom- lacked. Students had largely stopped panying piece was—this author). reading it, or writing for it. The pay- Heavy stock, beautiful colors, ads for ing circulation in the spring of 1978 galleries, a bank, saddlery. had sunk to 25, all of it off campus. The backbone of the issue was a At this juncture three students took 37-page essay by Lev Navrozov, on the an interest in the moribund magazine. West and the Soviet Union. Tonally, Mary Schwarz (class of '79) now works* it was scored in its lighter passages for as a program coordinator for the John kettle drums, in its heavier ones for M. Olin Foundation. Lee Liberman pneumatic drills. Along the way, it ('79) clerks for a judge on the Court delivered drop kicks to the CIA, the of Appeals (D.C. Circuit). The third New Yorker, George Kennan, student was Andrei Navrozov. Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Joyce, and Navrozov was not your typical Yalie Sigmund Freud. Lev, it should be (no one is supposed to be, but some are noted, had published a book on the less typical than others). He and his Soviet Union (The Education of Lev Navrozov), as well as articles in Com- Richard Brookhiser is Senior Editor at mentary, and so might well have been National Review. picked out by an editor of Andrei's 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1984 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED predilections, even if they had not Giamatti recalls, had a "nice chat." a role. A clean bill of health, from Lit's other critics claimed, that they possessed common genes. Navrozov gave him a copy of the latest Yale's own examiner. were protesting. That is still the claim And what were Navrozov's predilec- issue, Giamatti admired the graphics. today. "The Yale Literary Magazine tions? Politically, he insists, he is a They discussed the Lit's finances. has traditionally been an organ of "free thinker." "I don't believe in These were parlous. Each issue had U1 ntil the fall of 1981, there was lit- undergraduates at Yale," says Peter movements. Either ideas are self- cost between twenty and thirty thou- tle private criticism of these ar- Brooks, professor of French and Com- generated. Or they are received— sand dollars to print, and the Lit was rangements, and almost no public parative Literature. "It should not be which makes them worthless." In the over $70,000 in debt. Navrozov complaint. The storm that now broke alienated from them." Students on the common marketplace, his particular remembers Giamatti suggesting that over the Lit and the university struck staff, the occasional student poem— free thoughts are readily identified as the Lit incorporate; Giamatti doesn't. some noncombatants as part of a five, by the fall of 1981—these were conservative. Besides Navrozov pere Both agree that the new president ad- larger phenomenon. Across the Ivy not enough to make it a true on the Soviet Union, the new Lit has vised the young editor to get in touch League, conservative student undergraduate organization. "I'd be run pieces celebrating the free market; with the university administra- newspapers, funded by many of the just as cross," Hollander assured the the thought of James Burnham; the tion. same institutions which backed Courant, "if a left-wing group took it early days of National Review. Con- There followed, during the spring, Navrozov, had begun twitting over and didn't really include teachers, administrators, and general- students." ly raising hell. The lustiest of these, the Yet, strangely, the theme of politics, In July 1978, Yale Banner Publications, Inc. Dartmouth Review, waged war on like a Wagnerian motif, kept popping sold the copyright, assets, and good will of the black studies, gay rights, and the Dart- up. Brooks complained in the Courant mouth hierarchy; in response, an that "the name of Yale has become an Yale Literary Magazine to Navrozov, Schwarz, enraged administrator bit one of the illegitimate banner for a group of peo- and Liberman for one dollar. editors. The issues raised by the Lit ple and their ideologies." William were both less and more parochial- Styron, side-swiped in Lev's New York less because Navrozov conceived Review of Books piece, called it "an servative foundations have supported and stretching into the summer, a himself to be taking on the taste- extremely right-wing hatchet job." The it: Olin, the Institute for Educational series of meetings between Navrozov, makers of the outside world; more, journalistic brouhaha reached the rural Affairs, the Scaife Family Charitable Associate Dean Charles Long, and a because he had transformed an old solitude of Archibald MacLeish ('15). Trusts. lawyer from Yale's General Counsel's Yale fixture to do so. Both factors ac- The aged poet laureate of the establish- The magazine's aesthetic polemics office. (Navrozov had no legal advice, count for the bitterness of the ensuing ment wrote Giamatti asking how it was were, if anything, even sharper. "The scarcely any editorial advice—Schwarz criticism. that the Lit was now in the hands of following kinds of verse," the Lit an- and Liberman had left New Haven the One of the most vocal critics was the "right-wing propagandists." nounced on a campus poster, "have year before.) One internal Yale memo, poet and professor of English, John Sometimes the denials of partisan- the poorest chance of being pub- a briefing paper for Giamatti, noted Hollander.

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