G s> collaborated on a few screenplays, did did screenplays, few a on collaborated Beheading. ees' Despair', Defense', novels— Russian early his wrote and acting, some and poetry wrote and Nabokov columns, translating. chess newspaper Russian, and writing English, tennis, giving in exile, lessons of years early those during France and Germany, England, in penury his and fortune, family his antry, native in years, seven her preceding the visit during to once able been only had Vladimir are “We wrote, Street. Nabokov State Cornell,” with enchanted East 957 at es, could never be safe, permanent, nor easy. nor permanent, safe, be never could May, 1940. On its following trip to the the the to trip States, United following its On 1940. May, the on Atlantic the crossed chess playing ship, a on cargo 1919 little in crowded Russia left had “Nabokov Years American The Nabokov: poet Robert Frost wrote, the place where, where, place the wrote, Frost Robert poet the in place stable and there Is safe truly a arrival.” ever of “enigma the called oeta afw ude olr, n all and dollars, hundred few a than more mother and father. He had lived in genteel genteel in lived had He father. and mother begins biography, ume her attend to unable was he Europe, Prague. in room hospital a in 1939, 2, May third-class die would Nabokov, elder the an of rally. public a target at the when assassin shield to tried fanatic Nabokov right-wing Rus­ pre-Revolutionary in anti-Semitism lead­ a been had families, aristocratic wealthi­ est and oldest Russia’s father, of His one from troops. Nazi of ahead few a weeks 1940, in Paris Bolshe­ from of then and rise vism, the by Russia native his polit­ great the of two by exiled twice and forty- was He here.” us fate kind guided the has to that grateful very very “and hous­ rented of series long a in first the be would what into moved and 1948, 1, July sunk by a German U-boat. Perhaps life life Perhaps U-boat. German a by sunk sailing into New York Harbor in late late in Harbor York New into sailing Nabokov Nazis, of the of years ahead waters just later, Twenty-one the Harbor.” strafed Sebastopol guns Bolshevik as machine deck its on father his with in? you take to have they there, go you when the as really, it Is home? is Where world? artists more twentieth-century what great few about a than was It entrances. and exits goings, and comings of series a was and fortune, much of Vladimir Nabokov’s Nabokov’s Vladimir of much fortune, and funeral. a by 1922 in Berlin in son, killed his by been had revered Nabokov, V.D. sia. against fighter and democrat liberal ing from century—first the of cataclysms ical summer, Ithaca first that old years nine life was about displacement and loss— loss— and displacement about was life 97 Bcue fte oiia urs in unrest political the of Because 1937. eoeCrel Nbkv a ls his lost had Nabokov Cornell, Before two-vol­ magisterial his in Boyd, Brian Ivanovna Elena mother, ir’s ladim V on Ithaca in arrived Nabokov Vladimir Before Before ay Kn, ue, nv' The Knave', Queen, King, Mary, Lolita, al Cody Paul None of the novels earned earned novels the of None before the fame, furor, furor, fame, the before Champlain and and niain o a to Invitation Champlain, by saying, saying, by would be be would Vladimir Nabokov

taste for the avant-garde. the for taste shrink­ a for exiled, been had he country dSae hr wud e oe imperma­ more be would there States ed ogy—for Nabokov was a world-class lep- world-class a was Nabokov ogy—for year. by year semester, by dwellings. Semester temporary more still nence, n adec o mg6 edr wt a with readers 6migr6 of audience ing idopterist, an expert on butterflies, who who butterflies, publishwould eventually eighteenscientific on expert an idopterist, Zool­ Comparative of Museum Harvard’s at Work College. Uni­ Wellesley at and Stanford versity at teach to Appointments were written in a language from whose whose from language a in written were And then in his first decade in the Unit­ the in decade first his in then And at Cornell at Nabokov wrote short stories and began began and stories short wrote Nabokov otnns n sae onan, e in net mountains, scale and continents novel. novel. appointments, year year-by- the money, what would be a life-long association association life-long a be would what Communists. and Nazis left- and zealots, right- wing both of terror the about novel the and strangely beautiful migrants. beautiful strangely he would complete his first English English first his complete would he with the the with hand, in search of those other elusive and elusive other those of search in hand, cross would He entomology. on papers During all the travel, the scramble for for scramble the travel, the all During The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Sebastian of Life TheReal e Yorker. New Bend Sinister Bend huh i work his Though —obliquely —obliquely

Jack Sherman Jack Bishop ’ 14, PhD ’26, a professor of of professor a ’26, PhD 14, ’ Bishop nell’s search committee to hire a Russian Russian a Cor­ hire to committee chaired search who nell’s languages Romance one-year appointment. another one-year than more anything him refused literature professor. Though Nabokov Universi- Nabokov Cambridge from Though graduated had professor. literature Morris was work Nabokov’s admired pathetic, and W ellesley College had had College ellesley W and pathetic, late 1940s sales of the novels were still still were novels the of sales 1940s late the by circles, some in noticed being was u n o h pol woke and knew who people the of one But continued on page 6 on page continued page 2 T he R O O K P i^ S September 1998 The Green Bird in the Basement

we don't know how it got there, crows, pigeons, doves, grackles, drop and touch the damn thing, take for even if the basement windows and robins, although we did have some kind of care of it, not knowing were open, they're wholly screened, a pair of woodpeckers this spring if we could have done anything to so it must have been a one-time at our birdfeeder, red tufted heads save him, fluke when we opened the back door and speckled bodies, and a scarlet and then the basement door just tanager couple, not to leave out beyond the small entryway between, those geese and ducks in the pond but it still looks pretty unlikely in the park, and that strange dark or'maybe he just came for this bird, a fair-sized parakeet, whatsit with the long curved neck to us looking for a safe place to have gotten down there at all, that swims with its body under water, to die away from the sharp-toothed mewling and moulting, all holed up which only goes to show how content squirrels, and wanting a decent burial among the basement ceiling beams I am when they know their place with appropriate prayers and songs where we could do little to help, and where they belong, but how can for the. passing of such melodious unfamiliar with such strangeness I relish them dying in my house? life from the world, from my life, at the bottom of our own damn house, how have I become responsible for something who penetrated domestic walls somehow for fear of being bitten or infected that's not mine but somehow to bring us news of what's really except perhaps to call the ASPCA I have to take care of and which going on out there, messages from and ask them to come and rescue it— doesn't even work out in the end? high high up among the tall trees and us, of course—from this impasse, along these ordinary Flushing streets but they can't come till tomorrow, of this great round heart beating it being too late, it seems, tonight beneath the rectangles of our lives for them to do anything, despite I had an uneasy sleep that night the squares of our days singing us the fact that our visitor projects speckled with bright and restless to turn and return in curves to the all the warning signs of not being able dreams of strange countries and spirals of our dying and kiss to make it through the night, unfamiliar songs and prophecies the rod that chastises, for we die, drooping and whimpering softly, we found him cold on the concrete as he died, reminding us of what and avoiding us among the beams floor the next morning, neglected, transpires underneath our houses who are as fearful of chasing him fallen from his perch in a swoon, beneath the cheerful smells of as he is of our good intentions, and the place was starting to smell breakfast in the morning, the voice we are not used to one another so we had to clean it all up and of time and dreams we all ignore like this, dispose of him in a black plastic bag and from which no one can escape like they do lately with fallen soldiers and the victims of fire and flood feeling regret that it had to come although I've seen them to this and guilty that I couldn't help —Norman Friedman screeching up among the tall trees and resentment at being handed this along the street as I jog past, late assignment in the-first place wondering whether this is natural and—well—now that you ask, I'll or whether they're children's pets tell you, a missed opportunity Norman Friedman is a retired English profes­ escaped from thin domestic bounds a chance to cross the boundary sor and a psychotherapist. He is currently seek­ either way an exotic intrusion and grow feathers and beak for ing a publisher for his third volume of poetry, among the usual Flushing sparrows, a change, a chance to let revulsion Revelation to See My Face.

2)eath in Sammy As she did in her bestselling Giving Up The Romance Reader, Pearl WILLIAM TREVOR Abraham gives us an insid­ er's glimpse into Hasidic life.. Praise for William Trevor's America bestselling Felicia's Journey Praise for The Romance Reader: "This story...is about a journey as Mr. Trevor shows just how wise brave as Huck Finn's, as difficult as and wry and funny and morally astute Holden Caulfield's, as stark as any an observer of the human comedy he I've read." is. —Patrick McGrath New York Times Book Review — Anne Roiphe Los Angeles Times A thriller lifted to the level of high art. —Publisher's Weekly PEARL ABRAHAM 214pages*$23-95 cloth* Viking

ir S u b s c r ib e t o : I T h e Friends of the Bookpress iROOKFRESS M. H. Abrams Joyce Elbrecht Alfred Kahn Margaret Nash Publisher/Editor: Jack Goldman Diane Ackerman Kenneth Evett Peter Katzenstein Benjamin Nichols The Bookpress b r i n g s y o u a Managing Editors: Liz Brown and Jason Cons Frank Annunziata Lydia Fakundiny Isaac Kramnick Sonya Pancaldo I STIMULATING COLLECTION OF Fiction Editors: James McConkey and Helen T. M. Bayer LeMoyne Farrell Martha & Arthur Kuckes Steve & Johnnie Parrish | REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS AND Edward Hower | ESSAYS EIGHT TIMES A YEAR. Martin & Leslie Bernal Bryna Fireside Eva Kufner-Augsberger Andrew & Nancy Ramage Poetry Editor: Gail Holst-Warhaft I For only $12, the next eight Jonathan Bishop Harvey Fireside Sandra & Waiter Lafeber Mary Ann Rishel issues w ill be delivered directly to Art Editor: Catharine O'Neill Miriam Brody Sheldon Flory R. Carolyn Lange Edgar Rosenberg your door. Technical Consultants: Cara Ben-Yaacov and Will Morris E. Wayles Browne Mrs. William D. Fowler Deborah Lemon Nick Salvatore ' Name: ______Contributors: Patti & Jules Buigevin George Gibian Alison Lurie Jane Parry Sleeper ■ Address: ______John Bowers, Steven Chapman, Edward T. Chase, Edward T. Chase Jody Gladding David Macklin Cushing Strout Harvey Fireside, Jon Michaud, Kevin Murphy, Nick Salvatore, Cushing Strout, Paul West R. F. Cisne Henry Goode Myra Malkin Ann Sullivan 1 Phone: ______I Maria & Gerald Coles Jerry Gross Dan McCall Deborah Tall The entire contents of Th i Bo o m ies s are copyright O I 998 by Th i lootnEss, I nc.. All rights reserved. William Cross Maij Haydon James McConkey Ree Thayer I To SUBSCRIBE, PLEASE SEND IN YOUR PAY- I Trn Bookpiess w ill not be liable for typographical error or errors in publication. Jonathan Culler Neil & Louise Hertz Maureen McCoy Alison Van Dyke I MENT OF $ 12 TODAY TO: | Subscription rale is $12.(1U per year. The Bookpkess is published eight times annually, February through May and Ruth Darling Eva Hoffmann Terry McKieman Gail Warhaft I The Bookfrress, DeW it t Bu ild in g , I September through December. I 215 N. C a y u g a St ., It h a c a , NY 14850. I Submissions of manuscripts, art, and Letters to the Robert J. Doherty Roald Hoffmann Scott McMillin Paul West Editor should be sent. SASE, to: I (V is a /MC/D is c o v e r , c h e c k o r m o n e y I Dora Donovan Phyllis Janowitz Louise Mink Winthrop Wetherbee T he Bookpress, DeWitt Building I o r d e r a c c e p t e d . P l e a se m a k e c h e c k s I 2 15 N. Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 Ann Druyan George & Audrey Kahin Edward Murray Marian White | pa ya b le t o The Bookf/ress.) | (607)277-2254; fax (607) 275-9221 I------I i

September 1998 ______T he BQPKPRESS ______page 3 A Buddhist Beat

Mountains and Rivers Without End. Gary Snyder. Counterpoint, 1997. 165 pages, paper, $13.50.

Stephen Chapman

Some forty years in the making, Gary Snyder’s Mountains and Rivers Without End was finally published in 1996. It is a significant work—arguably one of the most important long poems written in English in the last quarter century. Like Leaves o f Grass, it is a collection of lyrical moments linked together to form a nuanced and multi-layered poetical statement. The cul­ mination of a long poetic career, it is in part Snyder’s attempt to make sense of his life’s work (although it would be a mistake to judge that achievement on the basis of Mountains and Rivers alone). Its tight struc­ ture conceals in deft and deliberate strokes a succession of poetic insights which, taken together, present a portrait of the poet who could produce such a poem. In its own unique way, but also in line with a long tra­ dition of American rhapsodizing about the wilderness, it can be read as a sacred text for a new ecological America.

Of Beats and Buddhism In the endnote attached to the poem, Sny­ der describes the sequence as “a sort of sutra—an extended poetic, philosophic, and mythic narrative of the female Buddha Tara”—a claim which is not merely rhetori­ cal but indicates a clear and concerted effort to present a religious perspective combin­ ing the organic and cyclical cosmology of Zen and Tantric Buddhism with modern ecology. He even extends the bounds of tra­ ditional Buddhist doctrine by incorporating the latest scientific advances, creating in the process his own idiosyncratic Goddess-ori­ ented Buddhism opening onto a cosmologi­ cal dimension. In its explicit embrace of Buddhism, Mountains and Rivers returns to and reaf­ firms Snyder’s origins in the Beat Move­ ment, the San Francisco Poetry Renais­ sance, and the curious religious revival movement of American Buddhism. The Beats, as is well known, rebelled against the conformity of the Eisenhower Era and extolled the life of liberty on the open road Don Karr amid the vast open spaces of the American West—a dream of footloose freedom forev­ very epicenter of an exciting circle of creative parallels between Native American and which thankfully restrained him from the er immortalized in Jack Kerouac’s On the activity, even something of a guru, Buddhist themes, searching for a common excesses of the “disembodied” school of Road (1955). Their conscious decision to renowned for his wisdom in matters of Shamanistic origin in the figure of the Beat poetry. opt out of the “system” by adopting an myth and mountaineering. wandering flute-playing bard, whose pet- A voracious autodidact, Snyder made alternative lifestyle was not just escapism— Another early poem, “The Circumam- roglyph can be found in the Canyon de himself familiar early on with the as has often been charged—but followed bulation of Mt. Tamalpais,” first pub­ Chelley and whose heir is the modern advances in scientific ecology, from its from an authentic spiritual quest and lished in 1966 in Coyote's Journal, backpacker. Reading Mountains and initial academic successes in the fifties and searching-out-of-the-truth. Through cultur­ records an actual event: Snyder’s inaugu­ Rivers in the context of Snyder’s lifelong sixties to later developments such as James al transmitters such as D. T. Suzuki and ration, along with Philip Whalen and dedication to Buddhism and his own Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis down to the Allan Watts, the Beats adapted Buddhism to Allen Ginsberg, of a pilgrim route around evolving idiosyncratic devotions helps to most recent studies in geomorphology. His the American vernacular. Practically all the Mt. Tamalpais in the Asian “sacred moun­ underscore the religious dimensions at the grounding in science endows him with a Beats studied Buddhism as a religious tain” tradition, complete with various core of the poem, which I believe repre­ Goethean ability to gaze across the “two option, but Snyder was the most consistent invocations and mantras (Whalen and sents a final and mature effort (after such cultures” divide between the sciences and of the group, and Buddhism informs virtual­ Ginsberg also recorded the event in their playful starts as the “Smoky the Bear the humanities which still splits our ly his entire oeuvre. own poems). The poem plots an elaborate Sutra”) to write a sacred text for a new knowledge of nature into the “objective” Snyder foregrounds his participation in Buddhist liturgy, proving that ascending kind of ecologically-informed American categories of the natural sciences and the the Beatnik movement and the trans-Pacific even humble Bay Mountain can become a Buddhism. “subjective” apprehensions of poetry and flourishing of American Buddhism in many meaningful spiritual experience, analo­ the fine arts. For Snyder, as for Goethe, of the early poems of the Mountains and gous to climbing the Buddhist and Taoist The Importance of Ecology truth is one, and as Snyder’s work evolves Rivers sequence. In a poem called “Night holy mountains in China and Japan. A At the same time as Snyder was deepen­ in both its poetic and its critical dimen­ Highway 99,” written in 1962 as part of the contemporary poem, “Three Worlds, ing his understanding of Buddhist litera­ sions, it strives towards a synthesis of the original Mountains and Rivers, Snyder Three Realms, Six Roads” translates some ture and practice, he was studying ecology most up-to-date scientific understanding gives an account of his travels up and down of the more obscure concepts of Buddhist and related disciplines such as geology and of nature with Buddhist cosmology, form­ the Pacific Coast in the late fifties, tracing cosmology into a stylized account of Sny­ plate tectonic theory. Although the concor­ ing a complete worldview which honors the spiritual cartography of the American der’s own itinerant spiritual wanderings as dance between Buddhism and ecology has both the scientist’s quest for objective highway at a time when it was still possible he travels from Seattle to Portland to San now become something of a commonplace, truth and the poet’s search for meaning. to hitchhike from Seattle to San Francisco Francisco, and finally on board a ship owing to the writings of E. F. Schumacher, It is possible to identify at least three with relative ease. “Night Highway” ends bound for Kyoto. Fritjof Capra, Thich Nhat Hanh and others, phases of Snyder’s involvement with ecol­ up in North Beach and recalls Snyder’s par­ In “The Blue Sky,” first published in Snyder was one of the first to actively pro­ ogy. The first goes back to the late fifties ticipation in the San Francisco Poetry 1968, Snyder pays tribute to the Pure Land mote the idea in his poetry and in his criti­ and sixties, when Eugene Odum’s model Renaissance and such historical happenings sect of Buddhism and to the Tathagata cal writings. Buddhism gave Snyder an of organic holism was the dominant para­ as “The Human Be-In” in Golden Gate Park Buddha of Healing, whom he brings into alternative philosophical and non-theistic digm. Snyder, along with many others at and the Ginsberg “Howl” event. We are dialogue with the Medicine Man of Native religious framework to the dualisms of the the time, came to realize that ecology’s reminded—if there was ever any doubt— American lore. Similarly, in the “Hump- Judeo-Christian and the Western meta­ perspective of nature as the interplay of that Snyder was a central figure of the West Backed Flute Player,” first published in physical traditions. Ecology provided him Coast branch of the Beat Movement, at the Coyote's Journal in 1971, Snyder draws with the facts and a firm grounding in science continued on page 10 page 4 T he R bO K FR E SS September 1998

Off Campus At The Bookery

This presentation is part of our ongoing series of readings Emeritus and talks upstairs in the DeWitt Mall. For Harvey Fireside “I am what is called a professor emeritus— from the Latin e, ‘out’, and meritus, ‘so he ought Sunday September 13, 4:00 pm to be’. ” (Stephen Leacock).

Katy Boynton Payne Merit’s a bleak word, solemn as a watch-chain Visiting Fellow at Cornell in Bioa­ or a row of medals across the chest. coustic Research, Katy Boynton With an e and an us it’s honorable discharge — Payne will read from and discuss enforced rest on a bed of laurels her new book Silent Thunder: In the that prick pride. Beside ‘professor’ Presence of Elephants. This account it spells the end of life as you knew it of Payne's pioneering discoveries in with all its dull duties, its to and fro elephant communication is part of student bodies predictable as V’s memoir, part spiritual quest, and of geese across the sky; the beginning part natural history of a life without constraint, of rest deserved if not desired. There are those emeriti who come in every day to get their mail and chat to colleagues Wednesday, September 16, 7:30 pm before they take a swim and add a line to papers they have always meant Let Davidson to end. Others spend half their year In Wisdom at Work, organizational in Florida, wishing they were back consultant, leadership coach and in the slush and scuffle of half-term. retreat leader Let Davidson snows You, of course, will do none of this. how to make work a place of spiri­ tual awakening. This inspiring book II. shows how to combine the inner and outer forces that drive the evo­ The story I liked best at the party lution of our work world in a way when old friends gathered at your house that also serves the bottom line. to celebrate your rise to the emeriti was how you told your youngest child not to mention the renegade priest, Daniel Berrigan, was hidden in your house. Sunday, September 27, 4:00 pm Later a mother told you that at least half the children knew the secret Steven Brouwer and shared it with their parents. The FBI If the U.S. economy is booming, why are so many Americans thought a fugitive would not court danger struggling to get by? Steve Brouwer answers this and many hiding among children too young to lie. other questions in Sharing the Pie: A Citizen's Guide to So Berrigan moved from house to house Wealth and Power in America, an informative and irreverent wherever children were and you, critique of the rightward shift in America since 1980. Steve mild and smiling rebel, found Brouwer is the author of Conquest and Capitalism: 1492- ways to rescue a Russian Jew 1992 and the coauthor of Exporting the American Gospel. He illegal Mexicans, Bosnian refugees. lives with his family in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Your Viennese father saw you were schooled in secrecy, chose a safe house for each of you. When so many were fooled he shrewdly planned his family’s escape. You learned from him temerity Thursday, October 1, 7:30 pm takes practice. Expert now in daring, you’re one of the emeriti. Marjorie Agosin The Bookery, in cooperation with Ithaca Amnesty Interna­ tional, Durland Alternatives Library, and CUSLAR, is proud to host a reading and discussion by Marjorie Agosin. Marjorie Gail Holst-Warhaft Agosin is recognized in North ana South America as one of the most versatile and provocative Latin American writers of her generation. She is the author of 20 books of fiction, non-fic­ tion, poetry, and essays, many of which focus on human rights Gail Holst-Warhaft is a poet, a translator of Modern Greek, and a abuses. frequent contributor to The Bookpress.

Saturday, October 3, 3:00 pm Don’t Forget Gerald Coles In his new book, Reading Lessons: The Debate Over Literacy, Gerald Coles argues that today's preferred methods of instruc­ M°OoOoSoE° W°OoO°D tion not only fail the children who never learn to read and write, but can also damage the thinking and behavior of most who do. Gerald Coles is the author of The Learning Mystique Open for Lunch and lives in Ithaca. and Dinner (Dinner only Sunday) The Bookery Enjoy our innovative, international menu, DeWitt Building, plus delicious, savory pitas, hearty soups, 215 North Cayuga St., Ithaca fresh breads, tempting desserts, and an array For more information call (607) 273-5055 of thirst-quenching beverages. or E-mail: [email protected] Monday through Sunday Dewitt Mall • 273-9610 Fine Original Cuisine /

September 1998 T h e R O O K F R F S S page 5 Radical Trajectories

been a neo-something, a neo-Marxist, a dipping in, whereas they were reading home location in the Lower East Side, Edward T. Chase neo-Trotskyist, a neo-liberal, a neo-con­ palookas like Howard Fast.” Brooklyn, and in the Bronx. Then the servative, in religion always a neo-Ortho- Lionel Abel: “He [Trotsky] had a literary scene is their student days at City Col­ dox, even while I was a neo-Trotskyist verve, which was unmistakable. He was a lege—“The basic memory was tussles An unlikely, even astonishing achieve­ and a neo-Marxist. I’m going to end up a great journalist, and the intellectual power with the other radical students,” Bell recol­ ment in creative film making this year, is neo. Just neo, that’s all. Neo dash noth­ of his criticism of the Stalin regime, most lects. “At City College there was an atmos­ Joseph Dorman’s documentary, Arguing ing.” of which has been . . . is accepted nowa­ phere of perfervid, overly heated, overly the World. In 107 minutes, the film covers Here is Dan Bell: When he had his bar days as justified that he was right. But we excited intellectuality,” comments Howe. the history of four central figures of the mitzvah he said to the rabbi, “I’ve found didn’t know he was right, we knew he was The opening crisis, the debate that “New York intellectuals,” from their 1930s the truth. I don’t believe in God.... I’m interesting. And, in a way, if you lived in established their intellectual framework, student days into the 1980s. By doing so, it joining the Young People’s Socialist the Village, what was interesting was right. was over Russia’s socialist “experiment,” is a gloss of key political-ideological devel­ League. So he looked at me and he said, Certainly, the uninteresting was wrong. Trotsky versus Lenin and Stalin. Nathan opments and ideas that have shaped the ‘Kid, you know you’ve found the truth. I’m not willing to altogether give that up, Glazer, the youngster of the four, was a 20th century. The protagonists are Daniel You don’t believe in God.’ He says, ‘Tell even today.” left-wing Zionist, joining Kristol, Howe Bell, Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and the me, you think God cares?’ Well, I was so Kristol: “My major memory of a dinner and Bell in the anti-Stalinist alcove #1 at late Irving Howe. Essentially a series of angry at that.” party, I got a plate full of food, and there City College. The 1936 Moscow trials, verbal portraits depicting the evolution of Irving Howe: “A good street corner was a couch, and so I walked over and sat featuring ludicrous accusations of foreign these four men in their own words, inter­ preacher could go on for three-quarters of down in the middle of the couch, not know­ espionage, and equally ludicrous confes­ spersed with historic newsreel shots and an hour. I rarely lasted more than twenty ing who was going to join me, not really sions, followed by execution, deepened some priceless period footage, the film has their conviction that Stalin was a murder­ real narrative momentum, much wit, inci­ ous dictator, that “tyranny arose out of the sive commentary, emotional vibrancy, and movement which was supposed to bring even an effective musical accompaniment. social justice to the world.” As William Phillips, the editor of Parti­ As the cast ages, the advent of Senator san Review, put it, “These men believed Joseph McCarthy and his congressional that if their radicalism was to be desirable inquisition of communism is a central fea­ and fulfilling, their thinking, their arguing, ture in the film. Bell remarks critically of must reflect the furthest reaches and the McCarthy’s left-wing victims, “Instead of most profound forms of modem conscious­ saying ‘We are communists, we have a ness.” Morris Dickstein makes a telling right to be communists, we defy you, these remark that characterizes the general evo­ are our ideas, you’re trying to destroy us,’ lution in their viewpoint, namely that, in they didn’t. They fudged. They took the the postwar years, the New York intellectu­ Fifth Amendment or denied.” He goes on als became deradicalized. “In a way, the to say the Communist Party and anti-communism of the New York intellec­ McCarthyites “both played each other’s tuals was prophetic of the direction that the game, and the liberals were being caught entire country took after the war.” between them.” The film’s basic point of departure is the About this time, Kristol and Howe, who “argument” over Karl Marx’s theory of at the time lived in the same apartment capitalism and the socialist ideal, these stu­ building, split decisively. Kristol dents’ original inspiration. At City College, expressed indifference to Howe’s dissent, the anti-Stalinist Trotskyists were congre­ while Howe’s thinking evolved to the gated in luncheon alcove #1, the Stalinists point that “political struggle would in alcove #2, the two camps being hostile become no longer between democratic and virtually incommunicado then and ever capitalism and communist totalitarianism, after. As they matured, their radical alle­ but will now be a struggle between conser­ giances changed. Irving Howe stayed vatism—Thatcherite conservatism or Rea- devoted to the socialist ideal, a democratic ganite or Kristolite conservativism—on Gary Kass socialist to the end; Irving Kristol became the one hand, and social democracy on the the founding neo-conservative; Bell an other.” anti-communist liberal (“cultural conserva­ minutes, even if that long. I had a certain much caring. Well, what happened was Kristol felt “expelled” by Howe; Howe tive, political liberal, a socialist in econom­ gift. I could lose an audience in about that Mary McCarthy sat down on one side simply states, “I made a big mistake with ics”); Glazer, never a Trotskyist, a middle- three minutes.” of me, Hannah Arendt sat down on the Irving Kristol and that was recruiting him of-the-road liberal, typified by his ambiva­ Kristol: “Like most young people with other side of me, and then Diana Trilling to begin. He wasn’t the . . . let’s say good lent attitude toward affirmative action, for some political consciousness in the pulled up a chair and sat facing me, and I material, but he wasn’t ‘expelled’ ever.” years “con,” today “pro.” Beside their inci­ 1930s, I assumed the world was coming was a prisoner. I couldn’t get out. And they A striking moment occurs in the film sive political commentary, they share wit, to an end, and there would be no point in then had a long, hour-and-a-half discussion when Diana Trilling recalls, quite devas- often self-deprecatory, always sharp. preparing oneself a profession. I knew on Freud, in which they disagreed, and I tatingly, “Just before we [she and Lionel] Relentlessly, the film moves on to the cli­ absolutely nothing about City College. don’t remember what the disagreements went to Europe in 1972, Gertrude Him- mactic episodes of the infamous 1936 All I knew was that it was free.” were. All I know is I sat there, quiet and melfarb, who was Mrs. Irving Kristol as Moscow show trials, the Hitler-Stalin pact, Howe: “The Stalinists were middle terror-stricken.” you know, phoned to ask whether we the McCarthy hearings, the Vietnam War brow, the Trotskyists were high brow, The momentum of Arguing the World would give our names to an ad in the New and the student riots of the 1960s, and the because they thought in the kind of terms increases till the very end, with the death of York Times for Nixon. I had much criti­ momentous breakup between Kristol and that you had when Partisan Review start­ Irving Howe. He and Daniel Bell are the cism of McGovern, but I wouldn’t dream his neoconservatives, on the one hand, and ed coming out, the union of two avant stars of the film for this reviewer. The Jew- of giving my name to, for, Nixon, and nei­ Bell, Howe, Glazer and the liberals and gardes, a political avant garde and a cul­ ish-immigrant world of New York is the ther would Lionel.” This was the social-democrats on the other. tural avant garde. We prided ourselves on starting point, with historic turn-of-the- “Democrats for Nixon” movement, the Here is the consistently amusing Irving reading Joyce and Thomas Mann and century shots of bustling city slums. Each Kristol: “Ever since I can remember, I’ve Proust, maybe not completely, but at least of the four protagonists tours his original continued on page 9 t

* RogerD e g r a d eCod SERBIA e v o « (aufonotnovis : Intkrprmk-m I S?8)

"A book of tremendous power... this is much more than a reporter's book abodt a bloody war in th§ Balkans. It is Literature." — Word Just

523 pages • $27.95 Random House * S o fia * page 6 T he ROOKPRESS September 1998 September 1998 THE ROOKPRESS page 7 Nabokov at Cornell continued from page 1 courts. By September, Nabokov had knowing his own value, saved the manuscript the future novelist Thomas Pynchon ’59, Vladimir Nabokov’s American years, moved from East State Street to the first and about his incredible from flames. science fiction writer Joanna Russ ’57, and his Cornell years, were essentially ty with first-class honors, he had no gradu­ two floors of a house at 802 East Seneca knowledge of history They moved to 623 novelist Richard Farina ’59, critic Roger over. He and Vera would live in a series ate degrees and had done little scholarly Street, where he and his wife, Vera, and Russian literature and Highland Road, then to Sale, PhD ’57, editor Michael Curtis of unglamorous hotel rooms, mostly in work. Bishop—a biographer of Pascal and would stay until 1950. literature in general.” In 106 Hampton Road. At ’59. At Cornell’s literary club, the Book Switzerland, and the international literary Petrarch, immensely popular and learned, He encountered a common College- one exam, Nabokov’s last, on December 6, and Bowl, Marc Szeftel and Richard celebrity would go on to write his novels a man who knew some eight languages and town problem—noisy neighbors. To the first question was, “List 1953, in still another Farina read from Lolita." Pale Fire and Ada. Lolita became a movie contributed essays and light verse to the occupants of a third-floor apartment the contents of Anna rented house—back at in 1962, directed by Stanley Kubrick, and New Yorker—already considered Nabokov Nabokov sent an elegant but bristly note. Karenina’s little red 957 East State Street On August 18, 1958, Lolita was final­ Nabokov was nominated for an Academy one of the century’s most important writ­ “I want further to remind you that your bag.” It wasn’t an exer­ where they had first ly published in the United States. Writ­ Award for best adapted screenplay. The ers. living room is situated exactly over our cise in trivia, The con­ lived in Ithaca— ing in the New York Times Book Review, film starred James Mason as Humbert “I am concerned with finding a Profes­ bedrooms and that practically every word tents of Anna’s bag are Vladimir Nabokov fin­ Elizabeth Janeway said, “The first time I Humbert, Sue Lyon as Lolita, and Peter sor of Russian Literature,” Bishop wrote. and every step is heard. Saturday night crucial to an understand­ ished Lolita, which he read Lolita I thought it was one of the Sellers as Humbert’s nemesis, Quilty. “What I have in mind is a man who will you had apparently a party and we were ing of her mind, and thus had been working on for funniest books I’d ever come on. The This summer a new movie version of Loli­ suck the students into his classes by per­ kept awake until 1:30 a.m. I am afraid I to Tolstoy’s greatest five years. second time I read it I thought it was one ta, finished for several years, finally aired sonality and by a creative attitude toward must insist that at 11 p.m.—or at 11:30 at masterpiece. M. H. Lolita is a love story, a of the saddest. . . I can think of few vol­ on cable TV. The new Lolita was not literature. We have enough footnoters the latest—all loud talking, moving of Abrams, an emeritus pro­ tour de force, a road trip umes more likely to quench the flames released in theatres; like publishers around; if literature is to compete with sci­ furniture etc. should cease.” A few years fessor of English, remem­ through every one of the of lust than this exact and immediate decades ago, producers were worried ence, it must be presented as a means to later, a more forgiving Nabokov would bers that Nabokov didn’t contiguous forty-eight description of its consequences.” But about the legal ramifications. wisdom and an upbuilder of life. The only dispatch another note upstairs. “If you engage in arguments. “He United States, a story Orville Prescott, writing in the daily By the 1970s, Vladimir Nabokov was person I have in mind is Vladimir want me to write those stories you are just bridled and left.” about a murder. It was Times, declared Lolita “highbrow widely acclaimed as one of the century’s Nabokov.” kind enough to appreciate, you will not In 1955 Nabokov began also a literary time pornography.” greatest writers. “You never really got Other than Bishop, few people on cam­ shatter the peace of mind in which they to teach Masters of Euro­ bomb, which would free Nabokov’s publisher, Walter Minton close to Nabokov,” says M. H. Abrams. pus recognized Nabokov’s talent, says are engendered.” pean Fiction, his first Nabokov from teaching of Putnam, wired: EVERYBODY “His natural look was down his nose. Not George Gibian, who came to Cornell in Never an easy nor modest man, Cornell course outside and make him famous. The TALKING OF LOLITA ON PUBLICA­ that he thought he was better than every­ 1961 as Nabokov’s replacement. “To Nabokov had once told a friend, “I divide the subject of Russian name Lolita would soon TION DAY YESTERDAYS REVIEW one else, but that was his natural posture. many, Nabokov was just one more eccen­ literature into two categories, the books I literature. It was a class be a household word in MAGNIFICENT AND NYTIMES He carried himself high. His demeanor tric Russian,” Gibian says, “an dmigr6 wish I had written and the books I have that would make him the United States, as BLAST THIS MORNING PROVIDED was such as to ward off people. He had an writer who had published some things in written.” famous at Cornell, well as fodder for such NECESSARY FUEL TO FLAME 300 air that kept people at a distance.” obscure Russian 6migr6 journals in the There were seventeen students in would attract hundreds comedians as Steve REORDERS THIS MORNING AND Perhaps it was the pain and awkward­ obscure Russian dmigrd world, about Nabokov’s first class, Russian Literature of students, and would Allen, Milton Berle, and BOOK STORES REPORT EXCEL­ ness of exile, the trauma of his father’s which most non-Russians knew nothing.” 151-52, and he proved to be a demanding be the most popular aca­ Dean Martin. But none LENT DEMAND CONGRATULA­ death, the experience of a wealthy aristo­ In the post-World War II years, when and eccentric teacher. “Although this demic course on cam­ of that would happen for TIONS. cratic boy who grows into the adulthood millions of former American soldiers were course is called a ‘survey’ in the cata­ pus. It was unofficially another four years. The Three days later, Lolita was in its of hard times. The eccentric Russian Emi­ settling into lives back home and veterans log,” he began his first Cornell lecture in called “Dirty Lit”—so called, according great 6lan,” Brian Boyd writes, “Vera the rarest and ripest fruit of art which story of the middle-aged academic, Hum­ third printing, and by mid-September gre, his brilliant books neglected, having were crowding classrooms on the Hill, 248 Morrill Hall, “it is not a survey at all. to Nabokov, because of an “inherited behind him. In the winter, overcoated to human thought has to offer.” bert Humbert, and his passion for his the book had sold 100,000 copies in its to always hustle for work and for a place Cornell offered Vladimir Nabokov some­ Anybody is able to survey with a skim­ joke: it had been applied to the lectures of the ears, he would stomp snow from his twelve-year-old stepdaughter was, as yet, first three weeks. Fawcett Crest bought to stay. Despite his love for Hawthorne thing he had yearned for; a permanent job, ming eye the entire literature of Russia in my immediate predecessor, a sad, gentle, galoshed feet and remove his coat, which While.the teaching went on, there too hot to handle. paperback rights for $100,000, a movie and Melville, Nabokov was never allowed a place to stay. He would start at $5,000 a one laborious night by consuming a text­ hard-drinking fellow who was more inter­ his wife— ‘my assistant,’ as he would refer were long summer treks in shaky cars to The Nabokovs moved to 101 Irving deal was in the works, a Texas town to teach American novels at Cornell year, teaching Russian literature. The exile book or an encyclopedia article. That is ested in the sex life of the authors than in to her in class—would drape over a chair the American West, where Nabokov, Place, and Vladimir began work on Pnin, a debated changing its name from Lolita because he did not have the credentials. would remain in Ithaca more than a much too simple. In this course, ladies their books.” before taking off her own. Then he would accompanied always by Vera and often novel that, along with the later Pale Fire, to Jackson, and students lined up outside Yet Ithaca offered him the most settled decade, perhaps the most stable and pro­ and gentlemen, I am not concerned with ‘“Caress the details,’ Nabokov would draw his notes out of his briefcase. As one by their son, would tramp the mountains is probably the work most closely based on Nabokov’s Goldwin Smith office to time of his exile. ductive period of his life. By the end of his generalities, with ideas and schools of utter, rolling the R, his voice the rough student recalls, ‘I don’t think Mr. Nabokov of Colorado, Utah, and Montana in his Cornell years. Both novels concern have copies of the book signed in time to “It was in an Ithaca backyard that his time at Cornell, the obscure 6migr6 novel­ thought, with groups of mediocrities caress of a cat’s tongue, ‘the divine realized how much suspense was involved search of butterflies. Nabokov, the child professors—one of Russian, one of litera­ wife prevented him from burning the dif­ ist would appear on the cover of Time mag­ under a fancy flag. I am concerned with details,”’ remembers Ross Wetzsteon ‘54. in this; like watching a handicapped magi­ of Russian aristocrats, the aesthete ture—at upstate New Yqrk universities. ficult beginnings of Lolita," Updike azine, and would write a novel, mostly at the specific text, the thing itself. We will “He was a great teacher not because he cian, we were never sure whether a fist full avant-garde novelist, was getting to And the long search for a publisher for To Vera writes. “The good-humored stories of his rented house at 802 East Seneca Street, go to the center, to the hub, to the book taught the subject well but because he of silks would appear instead of the expect­ know and love the American land­ Lolita was under way. Pnin were written entirely at Cornell, the that would shock his adopted nation and and not vague summaries and compila­ exemplified and stimulated in his students ed rabbit, or a custard pie instead of the scape—its people, its vernacular, the Despite Nabokov’s growing reputation, heroic researches attending his translation make him rich. His admirer and best Ithaca tions.” a profound and loving attitude toward it.” promised hard-boiled egg. It was always peculiar charms of cheap motels. Lolita was turned down—often with great of Eugene Onegin were largely carried friend, Morris Bishop, would not even read He gave grades to various Russian Another student remembers his opening an adventure.’” Most important of all, the great cas­ editorial reluctance—by Farrar, Straus; out in her libraries, and Cornell is reflect­ it because of its “scabrous subject.” writers: Tolstoy received an A-plus and remarks: “The seats are numbered. I Vladimir Nabokov and Vera Slonim had cade of brilliant prose, in English now Viking; Simon and Schuster; New Direc­ ed fondly in the college milieu of Pale “Lolita,” it would begin. “Light of my Chekhov an A, but Dostoevsky, a titan of would like you to choose your seat and married in 1925. Vera was born into a fam­ rather than Russian, continued to flow. tions; and Doubleday. Publishers feared a Fire. One might imagine that his move life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo- the Russian novel, rated only a C-minus. stick to it. This is because I would like to ily of affluent Jewish business leaders He completed his memoir, Speak, Mem­ lawsuit. In 1955, Nabokov sent the manu­ two hundred miles inland from the East lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of Chekhov had once described literary crit­ link up your faces with your names. All who, like Nabokov, were exiled from Rus­ ory, in his early Ithaca years, his impres­ script of Lolita overseas, where Olympia Coast gave him a franker purchase on his three steps down the palate to tap, at three, ics as flies that keep the horse from plow­ satisfied with your seats? Okay. No talk­ sia. Vera Nabokov was brilliant, immense­ sions evoking a much earlier time in a Press in Paris, publishing books in Eng­ adopted ‘lovely, trustful, dreamy, enor­ on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” ing. “Nabokov didn’t mince any words,” ing, no smoking, no knitting, no newspa­ ly capable, and considered extraordinarily very different place. “The cradle,” it lish, agreed to give Lolita a home. mous country’ (to quote Humbert Hum­ “She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, George Gibian says. “He had little use per reading, no sleeping, and for God’s beautiful even in old age. She sometimes begins, “rocks above an abyss, and com­ After a stay at Belleayre Apartments, bert). Nabokov was nearly fifty when he standing four feet ten in one sock. She was for literary criticism. He believed it was sake take notes.” helped teach her husband’s courses, trans­ mon sense tells us that our existence is Number 30, at 700 Stewart Avenue, the came to Ithaca, and had ample reason for Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. The legendary lectures__on Proust, late his fiction, answer his mail, and grade but a brief crack of light between two Nabokovs moved to another sabbatic artistic exhaustion.” She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in Austen, Flaubert, Dickens, Stevenson, exams. The Nabokov marriage was once eternities of darkness. Although the two house at 808 Hanshaw Road. In late 1955, The exile became the butterfly hunter, my arms she was always Lolita.” Along Kafka, and Joyce’s Ulysses—were pub­ profiled in a New Yorker article entitled are identical twins, man, as a rule, views in the London Sunday Times, no less a the maker of brilliant, lapidary, and, final­ with “Call me Ishmael,” it would be one of lished in 1980 under the title Vladimir “The Genius and Mrs. Genius.” the prenatal abyss with more calm than writer than Graham Greene picked Lolita ly, heartbreaking fiction. Through all the the brilliant, triumphant openings in Amer­ Nabokov: Lectures on Literature, with an the one he is heading for (at some forty- as one of the three best books of the year. This butterfly, hand drawn by Nabokov, moves, the stream of rented rooms, it was ican literature. introduction by John Updike. Before an Years after he left Cornell, Nabokov five hundred heartbeats an hour).” But John Gordon, an editor of London’s appears in a copy of his 1974 book only ever about that place in his head— The wandering exile would leave Ithaca exam, according to Updike, Nabokov would recall his time in the classroom. Speak, Memory ends with a long and Sunday Express, declared that Lolita was Look at the Harlequins! He dedicates the funnel of a ship, a boy playing chess and Cornell because of that novel. Only would say, “One clear head, one blue “My method of teaching precluded gen­ beautifully complex image of a ship “without doubt the filthiest book I have the book and his drawing to his wife with his father—where loss could be con­ now he was something different. He was book, ink, think, abbreviate obvious uine contact with the students. At best, readying for departure from Europe. ever read.” Vera. Recently acquired and donated to soled by art. It was about Humbert and the wizard, the author of Lolita, the master names, for example, Madame Bovary. Do they regurgitated a few bits of my brain “There, one last little garden surrounded Henry Briet, a book columnist for the the Cornell Library's Rare and Manu­ Nabokov longing achingly for something script Collections by Gail ('56) and not only of his adopted language, but of not pad ignorance with eloquence. Unless during my examinations. Vainly I tried to us, as you and I, and our child, by now New York Times, said that Lolita “shocks they could never really keep. The fleeting Steve Rudin. other brilliant novels in Russian and Eng­ medical evidence is produced nobody will replace my appearances at the lectern by six, between us, walked through it on because it is great art, because it tells a ter­ beauty of a butterfly, a word, a work of lish which contained mazes and mirrors be permitted to retire to the W.C.” taped records to be played over the college our way to the docks.” Finally, “it was rible story in a wholly original way. It is art—a place where a boy could hold on to and narrow escapes. He was the author of But even the most talented students fell radio. On the other hand, I deeply enjoyed most satisfying to make out among the wildly funny, coarse, subtle and tragic, all his mother’s and father’s hands, and the elaborate chess games about passion and prey to Nabokov’s mischief, Updike the chuckle of appreciation in this or that jumbled angles of roofs and walls, a at once.” bring home for Christmas break. pain of loss and grief would be eased. compulsion-like Invitation to a Beheading, writes. “When a Miss Ruggles, a tender warm spot of the lecture hall at this or that splendid ship’s funnel showing from Pnin would be published in America in He died in a Montreaux, Switzerland, in which a condemned prisoner marches to twenty, went up at the end of one class to point of my lecture. My best reward comes behind the clothesline as something in a 1957, before Lolita, when the Nabokovs Nabokov had never been paid particu­ hospital on July 2, 1977, with Dmitri and his execution and literally watches the retrieve her blue book from the mess of from those former students of mine who scrambled picture—Find What the were living at 880 Highland Road, their larly well by Cornell. Along with his Vera at his bedside. His last home was scene deconstruct, as though a movie set graded ‘prelims’ strewn there, she could ten or fifteen years later write to me to say Sailor Has Hidden—that the finder can­ favorite Ithaca house. Thousands of miles teaching duties, he had been writing his rented rooms in the Montreaux Palace were being dismantled. He was Vladimir Nabokov drew this spectacular butter­ not find it, and at last had to approach the that they now understand what I wanted of not unsee once it has been seen.” from his native Russia, Nabokov began a stories and novels, translating not only hotel, where he and Vera had lived happi­ Nabokov, the dazzling genius of American fly fo r his wife, Vera, in a copy o f his professor. Nabokov stood tall and appar­ them when I taught them to visualize That parting ship, a boy holding his translation of Pushkin's epic, Eugene One­ Eugene Onegin but his own earlier nov­ ly for years. literature, who in the words of long-time second published work, Al’manakh: ently abstracted on the platform above Emma Bovary’s mistranslated hairdo or mother’s and father’s hands, recalls gin. els into English, and traveling in the admirer John Updike, “writes prose the Dva puti [An Almanac: Two Paths], her, fussing with his papers. She begged the arrangement of rooms in the Samsa another earlier departure, where a father Boxes of the Olympia Press edition of West in search of butterflies. On January only way it should be written—ecstatical­ privately printed in St. Petersburg, his pardon and said that her exam didn’t household.” and son played chess while bullets Lolita were being seized by customs 19, 1959, Nabokov gave his last Cornell (This article was reprinted from the ly.” 1918. This book, the only known copy seem to be here. He bent low, eyebrows Despite his modest assessment of him­ strafed the harbor. In Nabokov’s memo­ agents in some countries, while other lectures, while a reporter from a July/September 1997 issue of Cornell After Cornell he escaped yet again, back in an American library, was recently raised. ‘And what is your name?’ She told self as a teacher—and his wrong-headed ry and art, the son and father exiled from copies were getting through. Sales were Swedish magazine took photographs. Magazine with the permission of the to Europe and more rented rooms. But acquired and donated to the Cornell him, and with prestidigitational sudden­ and eccentric dismissal of writers such as Russia become the father and son exiled brisk in Ithaca bookstores. “Lolita was The Nabokovs left Ithaca for good on author and the editors.) Ithaca would linger in Nabokov’s memory Library's Rare and Manuscript Collec­ ness he produced her blue book from Mann, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, James, and from France. Time and loss and disrup­ already hotly circulated on the Cornell February 24, on icy roads. and his fiction. Just as he had changed the tions by Jon A. Lindseth '56. behind his back. It was marked 97. ‘I Freud— Nabokov was nonetheless able to tion fall away and are transformed into campus,” writes Brian Boyd. “One student By September, Nabokov had formally Paul Cody is a former associate editor American literary landscape, Cornell had wanted to see,’ he informed her, ‘what a convey his passion and joy in great works great and permanent works of the imagi­ came up to Nabokov after a lecture, resigned from Cornell in a letter to Pres­ of Cornell Magazine and a frequent con­ changed him. genius looked like.’ And coolly he looked of the imagination. He wanted students to nation. Home and solace and safety exist Olympia edition in hand, and simply ident Deane Malott. “With one thing and tributor to The Bookpress. His most best for the students to know the texts, her up and down, while she blushed; that experience, as he called it, “the tingle” one in the novelist’s art and mind. bowed to him.” another,” he wrote, “I feel a sovereign recent novel is So Far Gone. That first Cornell summer of ’48, know the facts. Russia was full of struc­ was the extent of their conversation.” might feel “in any department of thought Back at 802 East Seneca Street, “Pnin was nominated for a National urge to devote myself entirely to literary Nabokov settled into his office on the turalism and formalism, and he didn’t Updike notes that the student didn’t or emotion. We are liable to miss the best Nabokov’s work on Lolita was so frus­ Book Award, and students, his own and work. I have been very happy at the Uni­ C.A. Carlson contributed research for north end of the second floor of Goldwin feel that was valuable. He didn’t bear remember the course being called “Dirty of life if we do not know how to tingle, if trating that he carried the early chapters others, kept bringing copies to be autp- versity and the pang of parting with it is this article. Smith Hall, GS 278, and played tennis fools lightly.I wouldn’t say he was arro­ Lit,” but rather, “Nabokov.” we do not hoist ourselves just a little high­ to an incinerator in the back yard to graphed. A Nabokov cult developed most keen.” The Nabokovs sailed for with his son, Dmitri, on the Cascadilla gant, but there were stories about his “He would enter the lecture room with er than we generally are in order to sample burn. But Vera, ever vigilant and valiant. among Cornell’s ambitious young writers: Europe on the Liberte. p a g e 8 T he ROOKPRESS September 1998 Invitation to a Festival

just a scholarly conference, but a festival Germany. Nabokov lived in Germany from well and understood what happened to Jason Cons that would celebrate Nabokov—his 1922-1937, where he wrote Invitation to a Ulysses. It is the same situation: philistine many talents and interests. About two- Beheading in 1934 (in Russian); it was seri­ societies everywhere cannot distinguish and-a-half years ago, I decided to take alized in 1935-6, and published in book between trash and true art. Gavriel Shapiro is Chair of the Russian concrete steps towards putting it togeth­ form in 1938. Literature Department at Cornell. His most er. Now, it’s almost here, and I am excit­ I’m working on a new book on Nabokov BP: Do you do you believe Nabokov’s recent book, Delicate Markers: Subtexts in ed but a bit concerned as well. These are and the pictorial. As a youth, Nabokov influence in the American literary canon Vladimir Nabokov’s "Invitation to a Behead­ uncharted waters for me. I am not an wanted to be a landscape painter, but around to be a lasting one? ing" was released this August from Peter impresario. This festival has to be a fit­ the age of 15 he realized that writing was his Lang Publishers. Shapiro is the director of ting tribute to Nabokov’s genius. It cele­ true vocation. Nonetheless, painting figures GS: Nabokov has a very important role the upcoming Cornell Nabokov Centenary brates not only the fiftieth anniversary of prominently in Nabokov’s artistic universe. in American letters. As a cultural liaison, Festival. “In this festival,” says Shapiro, his arrival at Cornell, but it is also the Even though he turned from the brush to the he introduced many people in America— “we celebrate Nabokov as a Renaissance first in a series of worldwide events pen , his keen sense of vision and color, his both through his fiction and through his man.” The festival, which takes place on marking the centenary of his birth. great interest in and vast knowledge of the translations and commentaries—to Russ­ September 10-12, will feature, among other fine arts, are all manifest in his work. ian literature and Russian culture, as well things, an exhibit of Nabokov materials, BP: It seems to me that Nabokov had as European culture in general. A striking including books from his personal library a somewhat love-hate relationship with BP: Nabokov is an extremely difficult example of this is the story of his transla­ and butterflies from his Cornell collection; a academia. In his novels Lolita and Pale author, yet he occupies an important place tion of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. One scholarly conference on Nabokov’s work Fire, he addresses some of the absurdi­ in American popular culture, most notably day he came home—so the story goes— with presentations by experts from all over ties and follies of academic life. as the author of Lolita. The controversies and told his wife V6ra that he was disap­ the world; a showing of Adrian Lyne’s new surrounding this novel have recently been in pointed with the existing translations of film adaptation of Lolita4, and a performance GS: Perhaps in Pnin more than any­ the news again with the new film production Eugene Onegin. To which she responded: of Dear Bunny/Dear Valodya, Terry Quinn’s where else. of Lolita [Until recently, film director Adri­ “Why don’t you translate it yourself?” dramatic adaptation of the letters of Edmund an Lyne was unable to find a distributor in What he produced is both a translation Wilson (played by William F. Buckley, Jr.) BP: Then how do you think Nabokov the US because major studios werecon- and a commentary, an astonishing work and Vladimir Nabokov (played by his son might have responded to a festival where cemed that the PR cost of promoting such a of superb scholarship. Dm itri).The Bookpress recently had an such a large portion of time is devoted to film would outweigh the profits]. How has Nabokov also served as a mentor to a opportunity to speak with Shapiro about his scholarly interpretations of his work? Nabokov’s role in American culture new generation of American writers, such book, his interests in Nabokov, and changed over the past half-century? as Thomas Pynchon and Richard Farina , Nabokov’s continuing role in American GS: Well, we have to understand that both of whom were students at Cornell letters. Nabokov did have some mixed feelings GS: I am amazed at how history repeats during Nabokov’s tenure. about academia. He had a BA from its follies. What Nabokov experienced in Gavriel Shapiro; Nabokov’s motto, to Cambridge University, but there were the 1950s, when he had so many difficulties BP: Nabokov has a certain reputation which I subscribe in my work, was “attention many snobs who thought he was unqual­ publishing the novel, is now happening in for his strong opinions on literature. One to detail.” He would tell his students to fon­ ified to teach in a university. Nabokov another medium. In the 1990s, people still of these, for example, was his outspoken dle details. Nabokov writes [in his Cornell dubbed PhDs the “Department of have not learned that Lolita is a very moral dislike of the works of Dostoevsky. Lectures on Literature], “In reading, one Philistines.” novel. To say that it promotes child abuse is should notice and fondle details. There is On the other hand, let’s not forget that as absurd as saying that a novel about war GS: Here is the problem. So many can­ nothing wrong about the moonshine of gen­ Nabokov was a teacher almost all of his promotes war, or that a detective story pro­ not read Dostoevsky in the original Russ­ eralization when it comes after the sunny tri­ dmigrd life. For many years he was des­ motes crime. ian. If you read him in Russian, you real­ fles of the book have been lovingly collect­ titute in exile, since his writing, of Lolita shows how Humbert ruins his life ize not only that some situations in his ed.” course, could not support him. He taught through his destructive passion and, more novels are forced, but also that he is not a tennis, boxing, prosody, Russian, Eng­ importantly, he also ruins the life of Lolita. great craftsman of language. For Bookpress; Tell me about your first lish, and French. As I’ve been organiz­ It is symbolic and telling that she dies in Nabokov, this was an offense. Nabokov encounters with Nabokov’s work. ing this conference and talking to people stillbirth. We may recall that after their first wrote in the tradition of Pushkin, Gogol, who studied with Nabokov at Cornell, a intercourse, she complains that Humbert has Chekhov, and Tolstoy. These were true GS: 1 grew up in Moscow and Nabokov common phrase has been, “Nabokov broken something inside her. She is corrupt­ craftsmen. Tolstoy reworked his writings was banned in the USSR until the mid- taught me how to read, how to see.” ed by him: he forces her to lie, infringes on a great many times, and Gogol used to say 1980s. Completely banned. I first heard What more can you ask of a teacher? her freedoms. that each work should be rewritten at least about him in 1971. I was 26 at that time. I Nabokov had many gifts. He was a eight times. But Dostoevsky was a com­ always wanted to be a literary scholar, but scholar and his studies were aided by his BP: For me, Lolita is the perfect represen­ pulsive gambler who needed lots of literature was a highly ideological field of first-hand creativity. He was an accom­ tation of American consumer culture and, in money to satisfy his addiction. He was study under communism. I felt it wouldn’t be plished lepidopterist. But even though a way, she is subverted by Humbert’s old- writing to meet deadlines and often didn’t good to study in the Soviet Union because the main thing for him was his writing, world intrusion. Perhaps it is fitting that have time to polish his work. In the end, they would try to brainwash me and I would he needed his teaching jobs to make a popular culture would have such a tenuous however, we read and judge what is in only learn within state-imposed censorship. living. As soon as he published Lolita relationship with the book. front of us, but I think I can understand So, I decided to study chemistry, but in my (which became an overnight success) he GS: I suppose, but in Nabokov’s lecture the reasons for Nabokov's dislike of Dos­ heart I was always a literary scholar. After I retired from the academic world and on Madame Bovary (in Cornell Lectures on toevsky. Remember, Nabokov was an graduated from Moscow University in 1968, concentrated on his writing. Literature), he alludes to the fate of his accomplished natural scientist who stud­ I became involved in the Jewish movement Still, Nabokov’s time at Cornell was novel: “The book is concerned with adul­ ied the anatomy of butterflies under a and wanted to emigrate to Israel. When I an extremely productive one. Pale Fire tery” and “indeed, the novel was actually microscope. He strove for precision in announced my intentions, I lost my job. was written after he left Cornell, but it tried in a court of justice for obscenity... as both science and literature and any errors I was doing odds and ends for work, was, to a great extent, conceived in Itha­ if the work of an artist could ever be against the truth vexed him. For Nabokov, because if you didn’t work for more than six ca. Lolita and Pnin were written here, as obscene.” Nabokov believed that true art any approximation in a work of art was months you were considered a parasite on the was his translation and commentary on could not be obscene. He goes on to write, unpardonable. State and might be sent to Siberia. Imagine Eugene Onegin. “I am glad to say Flaubert won his case. the difficulty of trying to find menial work This was exactly a hundred years ago. In our Jason Cons is a writer and a managing with a university degree. Potential employers BP: In what ways did Invitation to a days, in our times... But let me stick to my editor at The Bookpress. were immediately suspicious of me. But I Beheading appeal to you as a focus for subject.” Nabokov also knew Joyce’s writings managed to find some loopholes in the sys­ your newly published book? tem. In the spring of 1971,^ friend who was a GS: Well, it was natural because my literary scholar gave me one of Nabokov’s first and second papers on Nabokov as a novels. I didn’t know that it was a Nabokov graduate student were on Invitation to a novel at the time; there was no name on it. It Beheading. In a sense, the publication of was The Defense, one of his earlier works. I this book completes a circle. Invitation NABOKOV read it in one night and was astounded. I to a Beheading is an unusual novel in wanted to know who wrote this and why I, a Nabokov’s canon. It can be defined as native speaker of Russian, had never heard of dystopian, but it has many dimensions. CENTENARY FESTIVAL an author who wrote such magnificent prose. Especially important is the theme of the I had to wait until the fall of ’72 before I individual against the crowd, against read Nabokov again. I came to Israel and totalitarian society. In this case, the indi­ jumped on everything I could get my hands vidual has the inclinations of an artist on. I read many authors I was prevented from who cannot find refuge from the all-see­ reading in Soviet Russia. ing totalitarian regime. Of course, this resonated very strongly with me. The BP: Now, more than 25 years later, you book cannot be reduced to this one A I # 4 s ) a are organizing a festival that honors dimension, but it is one of its strongest Nabokov. themes. Nabokov was annoyed when people tried to reduce it to a socio-polit­ GS: I conceived an idea for the festival ten ical novel, but he did talk about the years ago. I talked to the department chair at novel’s relation to “communazism” (a the time and told him about it. He asked me word he coined) and its implications to write an outline. I wanted this to be not against both the Soviet Union and Nazi CORNELL UNIVERSITY• SEPTEMBER 10-12,199S September 1998 The BOOKPRESS Page 9 Radical Trajectories continued from page 5 streak. We could see the commissar in McCarthy’s hearings at the time diverted runs in a few cities and at selected places very start of the neo-conservative move­ him, and that put us off.” Bell noted Hay­ attention from these crimes: the execution like the Film Forum and the Century Club ment, she avers, leading to Republican den had been called “the Richard Nixon of of Russian Jewish writers David Bergel- in New York City. But it will be shown on political victories in the White House. the Left,” and Bell agreed. He remarks son, Peretz Markish and several others; national Public TV in April 1999, and Close lifetime friends and colleagues here that, “Liberalism has no fixed dog­ the staged murder of Jewish anti-Fascist doubtless shown in numerous venues in though they were, Bell split with Kristol mas. It has no fixed points; you say, ‘this Solomon Micheols; the purge trial of the coming months as word of its excel­ also. Bell remarks that Kristol wrote, in is the liberal position.’ It changed because Slansky; the so-called “doctors plot,” lence gets around. The National Interest, that, ‘“For me, the it’s an attitude. It’s a skepticism. It’s a where sixteen Jewish doctors were con­ Most of the movie critics’ comments so Cold War is not over. To me it’s a war pluralism. It’s agnostic.” Howe says here, demned for an alleged poison plot against far are a good omen for the film’s recep­ against liberalism.’ And I blink. I say, “To me, socialism is no longer a dogma or the Politburo. tion as it reaches a national audience. ‘Well, you know, I can be critical of liber­ an ideology, but it’s a vision, a hope, an Ann Douglas, in Raritan, doesn’t deal “This fascinating film, whose lean, alism, but a war against liberalism? Why?’ expectation, for a world in which there with the film but slights the achievements information-packed narrative doesn’t Well, liberalism is responsible for the will be greater equality, common owner­ of its cast. While conceding they were waste a word, succeeds in compiling moral decay of the country. Well, this I ship of major industries by people who often, like Trilling, “geniuses,” she sharp, concise portraits of its subjects. The find quite wrong. If there’s a sense of work in industries, a gradual transforma­ echoes Dwight Macdonald’s charge of movie offers one of the deepest portraits decay, it’s been in the ethics of so much, tion from the ethic of accumulation and insufficient “disinterestedness” but she ever filmed of the fluidity of ideas, as not all, but so much of those business cor­ me-ism.” criticizes Macdonald as a “leader in the good minds grapple with the cataclysms of porations, and the way in which they’ve In his “defense” of the charge he had group’s reactionary charge against Amer­ history and the human condition and have simply lived lives of total luxury and become a “champion of the growing polit­ ican mass culture” (italics mine). She the temerity to keep searching for spoilation, not a word of condemnation of ical participation of the religious right,” feels they simply didn’t get it. She excori­ answers” (New York Times, January 18, this. So moral decay is always the poor Kristol states, “The notion that a purely ates Alfred Kazin and champions C. 1998). blacks, homosexuals, others, as a form of secular society can cope with all of the Wright Mills over all the intellectuals of “It’s all very moving and illuminating” family values, and nothing on the other terrible pathologies that now affect our that time. {The New Yorker, January 12, 1998). side.” society, I think, has turned out to be false, Godfrey Cheshire, in the New York “Arguing the World captures it all with Irving Howe’s comment brought a laugh and that is making me culturally conserv­ Press (1/7-13/98), writes perceptively on precision, humor, even a touch of emo­ from the audience at the showings I ative. I mean, I really think religion has a Arguing the World. He poses the question tion. In significant part, this is attributable attended: “I look upon him [Kristol] as a role now to play in redeeming the country, of why the ascent and prominence from to each of the four explaining the twists political opponent and the fact we were and liberalism is not prepared to give reli­ the 1930s till the 1980s of “members of and turns of his own thinking over the past together doesn’t stir the faintest touch of gion a role. Conservatism is, but it doesn’t one new and very marginal immigrant half century in a way that illuminates the sentiment in me. I wish him well personal­ know how to do it.” subgroup became so central to the cultur­ usually little understood essential differ­ ly, lead a long life with many political fail­ Some useful criticism of Arguing the al and political life of a nation to which ences among them. In part, too, it is ures.” World has emerged. Bell and others have they were, at first, profoundly and almost because of the useful running commentary Michael Walzer, the current editor of agreed with me that Sidney Hook was belligerently alien?” He points out that provided by a host of involved contempo­ Dissent, goes to the heart of the neo-con­ neglected. He was a potent voice on the another, later group of European Jewish raries and later observers (including Mor­ servative position when he remarks, “It very matters that engaged the New York refugees, immigrants or their children ris Dickstein, Diana Trilling, Lionel Abel, seems to me that increasingly the neo-con- intellectuals. Ellen Willis felt women went on to become a potent cultural force Michael Walzer, and William L. O’Neill), servatives were in the grip of an ideology, were somewhat slighted, but Hannah in Hollywood, “an empire of their own,” plus the deft use of old photographs and and the ideology was the ideology of the Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Hard­ in the title of Neal Gabler’s celebrated newsreel footage” {The New Leader, free market, and they seemed to me to be wick and Diana Trilling are quoted and book. He credits Bell, Howe, Glazer and December 29, 1997-January 12, 1998). Bolsheviks in the way they adopted and are seen as “writers,” not “women.” Stew­ Kristol, et al. with likewise building “a defended and promoted this ideology . ” art Kalman was negative in The Nation. principality of remarkable power and Edward T. Chase is the former editor- Arguing the World is illuminating also Bell himself, most omnivorous of readers, cohesiveness within, and having an ever- in-chief of New York Times Books and in clarifying the “New York intellectu­ regretted the lack of detailed references to increasing impact on, America’s intellec­ senior editor at Scribner. als’” relations with the student radicals of Stalin’s campaign against the Jews in tual realm.” Well said. the 1960s. In 1968, student anger over the Russia and Eastern Europe. Senator The film has only been shown for short Vietnam War erupted on college campus­ es. Radicals attacked Columbia Universi­ ty, where Bell had been a faculty member for a decade. As Irving Howe put it, “We BEINTE STARCKE KING felt very strongly that by 1968 or so, the New Left people were not engaged in FRUITS AND FLOWERS' intellectual discussion or debate or politi­ Botanical Paintings cal struggle with us; they were out to destroy our bona fides. They were out to SEPT. 15-OCT. 10, 1998 deny that we had a right, so to speak, to exist, and this was one of the ways in A chance to see King's Enclosed is m y contribution to ' which the idea of confrontation took fine brush and pencil place.” Bell found negotiation with the Friends of the Bookpress. □ Please send my complimentary work, — with new takeover-radicals at Columbia impossible. □ $25 0$50 0 $ioo □ oth er$___ subject matter. He felt the great universities were the SUBSCRIPTION TO The Bookpress AS A essential institutions for free debate and Name: ______GIFT t o : were complex and fragile. He tells that Address: ______when police were called in at Columbia, he was with Lionel Trilling, came home at N a m e :______two a.m. and “burst into tears.” He felt Phone: Address: ______Columbia was all but destroyed, the facul­ SOLA art gallery ty torn apart. He left for Harvard. □ Please keep mv contribution anonym ous Dewitt Mall, Ithaca, N.Y. 14850 Both Bell and Howe found radical The Bookpress is a n o n -p r o f it Tel: 607 - 272 - 6552 leader Tom Hayden off-putting, with a ORGANIZATION Mon.-Sat. 10:30-5:30 “very strong authoritarian, manipulative A l l DONATIONS ARE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE J

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continued from page 3 Earth with the precision of scientific obser­ night. We find the poet in a kind of trance, and then translate that creativity into the vation but expressed in the co-creative Manfred-like, staring out over the vast effusions of his own co-creative poetry— interconnected parts in which “everything activity of the poetic imagination. abyss, inspired by the breezes coming up physis metamorphosed in the fires of the is related to everything else” approxi­ from the flatlands below and by the shoot­ imagination into a refined poiesis. The mates the world-picture presented in Bud­ What the Bristlecone Pines Said ing stars above. There he has a vision of poem concludes with a bizarre neo-archa- dhist cosmology. The fruits of this These later poems, in the fourth and final ever-creative nature, of the whole uni­ ic ritual in which the poet and his para­ engagement were published in Earth section of the Mountains and Rivers verse literally palpitating with life, and mour “dance the pine tree,” a cosmic Household, a founding text of ecological sequence, represent a deepening of Sny­ there he begins the recitation of the poem dance around the twisted roots of the old radicalism, whose very title is a play on der’s overall poetic vision and a substan­ of all poems, the poem of the earth: Bristlecone Pine: the Greek roots of the word ecology (from tially new contribution to American nature oikos meaning house or home, and logos poetry. The poem entitled “The Mountain Erosion always wearing doivn; — The Mountain Spirit and me meaning word or order). Its subtitle, Spirit,” a dream-vision loosely modeled on shearing, thrusting, deep plates crumpling, “Technical Notes & Queries to Fellow the archaic No play Yamamba (Old Moun­ like ripples of the Cambrian Sea Dharma Revolutionaries” gives some idea tain Woman) may be taken as the visionary Still uplifting— ice-carved cirques of its content and suggests how linked epicenter of the entire set and Snyder’s dendritic endless fractal streambed riffs on hillsides dance the pine tree Snyder’s interest in ecology and in Bud­ most consummate effort to date to arrive at dhism were from the beginning. In this a synthesis of Buddhist cosmology with an old arms, old limbs, twisting, twining early period—consistent with the radical up-to-date ecological understanding of nat­ This is Snyder’s High Argument, a politics fashionable at the time—ecology ural processes. theme which extends the principle of scatter cones across the ground became for Snyder the “scientific” justifi­ The Mountain Spirit is a goddess figure: identification between mind and nature cation for a revolutionary praxis in which Mother Nature, Gaia, the Ewige Weibliche (the Romantic High Argument) to a deep­ stamp the root-foot DOW N the breakthrough into enlightenment is known by many names. For an ecological er level, enriched by a more profound figured in political terms as a “flip” from poet like Snyder, she is mistress and muse, understanding of the cosmic story and by This sing-songy identification of the current destructive and unsustainable the voice of nature with whom he can enter an epistemology grounded in evolutionary poet with the Mountain Spirit encompass­ practices to an adherence to the Dharma as into creative dialogue. Snyder uses the theory. Snyder beholds nature as pure cre­ es a long-view of geological time, extend­ it is revealed in nature. Snyder’s ecology, conventions of the No literary form, ative process, rock diving into earth and ing back to a period when the Great Basin like his Buddhism, was from the begin­ steeped in archaic Shinto tradition and mountains lifting up their heads and pour­ was part of the ancient Cambrian Sea ning politically active, pointing down the infused with an earlier animism, to serve as ing dust over sea shells from ancient teeming with the first squirmy forms of path from right thinking to right action. a vehicle for his vision of a living and seabeds. Here we have Vulcanism supple­ life. There is a distinctly pagan flavor to The second stage of Snyder’s engage­ evolving universe. The poem opens with mented by Neptunism, a vision of the uni­ all of this, bringing to mind the ancient ment with ecology occurs after his return an incantatory repetition in the Eastern verse as continual creation and destruc­ Dionysian orgies in which the principle of from Japan in the late sixties and his fashion, almost like a Buddhist chant, tion, of past upliftings carved into ever individuality is lost within an overpower­ reading the work of James Lovelock and affirming the analogy between geological new shapes by the steady wearing away of ing identification with the larger whole. I others. Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis pro­ cycles and the cycles of mortality: erosion. take the Bristlecone Pine here to be a vided him with a model of the biosphere What Snyder presents here is not just symbol of the evolutionary “tree of life” as a single self-regulating organism, Ceaseless wheel of lives dreamy nature poetry, but a poetry of whose roots and branches help us to visu­ which he then brings into relation with ceaseless wheel of lives nature informed by a precise, up-to-date alize the twisted togetherness of coevolu- the Goddess archetype in both the West­ scientific understanding of the geophysi­ tionary history. The dance can then be ern and Eastern traditions (as in “Short red sandstone; cal processes which are still shaping the understood as a celebration of the creativ­ Songs for Gaia” in Axe Handles). After gleaming dolomite earth’s crust. The “ice-carved cirques,” ity inherent in those evolutionary settling down on his homestead in the for instance, refers to the repeated cycles processes which, over a period extending Upper Yuba valley, Snyder became ceaseless wheel of lives of glaciation as rivers of ice moved up and back three billion years and more, and increasingly involved in watershed ecol­ down the valley during the Pleistocene (a through numerous metamorphoses, pro­ ogy, in the idea and practice of building red sandstone and white dolomite. theory, incidentally, first adduced by John duced the conditions which allow the poet sustainable communities, in the biore- Muir to explain the polishing of the steep to stand where he stands and sing of these gional movement, and in multiple per­ The “wheels of lives” motif refers to the cirques in Yosemite). Words like “den­ momentous events. In this way, Snyder sonal projects aimed at cultivating a Buddhist doctrine of samsara reincarnation dritic” and “fractal,” lifted from the geol­ expands the limits of poetic conscious­ healthier relationship with the land (most or metempsychosis—a cyclical cosmology ogist’s lexicon, enter into the service of ness to embrace the entire unfolding of this falls under the rubric of what he of death and rebirth central to most Eastern poetry in an effective concatenation of process of cosmogenesis extending back calls “reinhabitation,” by which he religious traditions. Sandstone is a clastic unlikely sounds and images. The admix­ to the originating mystery of life and for­ means learning to live on the land as bio­ sedimentary formation left behind from ture of geological insight with a poetic ear ward to the genesis of his own poem. logically naturalized citizens). In addi­ flood plains, alluvial fans, dunes, beaches, allows Snyder to come up with such felic­ The sudden disappearance of the tion, his thinking during this time is shallow sea bottoms and the like. itous phrases as “calcium-spiraling Mountain Spirit—“and then she’s influenced by the traditions of Buddhist Dolomite, or dolostone (calcium magne­ shells,” “magma-swollen uplands,” gone”—does not, however, leave the poet philosophy and cosmology, and chiefly sium carbonate) develops from direct pre­ “ranges into rubble” and “lime-rich wave- exactly forlorn. Just when the poem by Dogen, whose vision of a living uni­ cipitation of carbonates from seawater, and wash soothing shales and silts.” Or he can seems to drift off into some sort of hope­ verse in which “the blue mountains are is thus already involved with the inter­ celebrate a single tectonic event: lessly Romantic Sehnsucht, Snyder reaf­ constantly walking” provided him with a weaving processes which bind the organic firms his craft by ironically wrapping up model for a process cosmology enriched and inorganic together in complex flows as ten million years ago an ocean floor his nocturnal vision with a matter-of-fact by many points of contact with modern carbon and other elements are circulated glides like a snake beneath the continent and even humorous closure. Posing as if ecological theory. This second period of through the biosphere. Quantum theory crunching up tired of bantering with spirits and wishing Snyder’s engagement with ecology is and the new life sciences confirm what has old seabed till it's high as alps. for sleep, he bids goodnight to both his represented most explicitly in Turtle always been a central theme of Eastern dancing partner and his reader and returns Island (1974), which presents a vision of cosmologies, namely, that everything is To look at the landscape through the to his bivisack spread out under the open a new America premised on the impera­ connected to everything else in the cease­ eyes of the geologist-poet is to behold the sky: “A few more shooting stars/ back to tive of reinhabition. less rolling of the wheels of life. Both poem of the earth as it unfolds in succes­ the bedroll, sleep till dawn.” The third stage of Snyder’s synthesis organic and inorganic life are part of a sin­ sive periods along a story-line extending of Buddhism and ecology belongs prop­ gle unfolding process. back many eons. Through a kind of partic­ Stephen Chapman is a frequent con­ erly to the final period of the Mountains After the opening mantra, the poem ipatory mimesis, Snyder is able to “plug tributor to The Bookpress. and Rivers project, coming in a flurry of moves from the lofty terrain of metaphysi­ in” to the creative energy of the cosmos, inspiration in the mid-nineties and con­ cal speculation to the rough and real terrain — nected with the final push to complete the of the Western American landscape, while poem. Whereas the earlier poetry dwelt at the same time transposing the form of mainly at the level of immediate sensory the No drama into a distinctively American experience of nature, the later poetry idiom. The poem is structured as an initia­ Cartesian Sonata penetrates deeper into the inner workings tion of sorts in which the reader finds him­ of natural processes, concerned not so self with Snyder on an overnight vision- much with topical impressions as with quest. The object of the poet’s quest is the - and other novellas - larger earth-shaking events such as sub- fabled Bristlecone Pine. These trees, which duction, uplifting, and the clash of conti­ live on the edges of the Great Basin, grow nental plates. In these later poems Snyder in twisted and gnarled fashion with new offers us a vision of the Earth as a single wood constantly coiling around the old, creative process evolving along a space- and are among the oldest living beings. time continuum. Especially evident in Bristlecone appears frequently in Snyder’s these later poems is a deeper understand­ work as a symbol of nature’s longevity, ing of the cosmic story, of the epistemo­ and of a time frame which stretches back logical implications of evolutionary theo­ beyond recorded human history. In this ry, and a highly technical grasp of the poem, the Bristlecone Pine serves as a morphological processes which are still symbolic center around which the poet and shaping the living tissue of the planet. the Mountain Spirit, his lover and friend, His achievement in these later poems is can enter into a kind of sacred communion. W J.LL I AM , to fashion a kind of interactive scientific- The vision proper begins later that night "One o f the cons innate magicians of English prose..." poetic discourse in the tradition of under a precise astrological coincidence, Lucretius, Erasmus Darwin, and Goethe, when Mirfac, “the brilliant star of -Washington Post which celebrates the creativity of the Perseus,” crosses over the ridge at mid­ 274 pages, $24.00 cloth ^ n ° P ’ September 1998 The ROOKPRESS page 11

Crossword by Adam Perl ... 3 a 4 s 6 ym,T8 9 10 11 12 Puzzling it Out 2 |Pg 1 | 14 ' 16 uv - $ Drive Dive Dance & Fight Kennedy presents us with people struggling i? 18 19 Thomas E. Kennedy. to make sense of their lives and, sometimes, tmm m BkMk Press, 1997. the lives of others. In "The Burning Room,” a 29 n 22 WJt* - • 152 pages, paper, $14.95. counselor attempts to win the trust of a torture 23 24 25 victim and to understand his dilemma: In it V - explaining his preoccupation with another 27 28 29 30 Suzanne Kamata man’s life, he says, “Humankind is a mystery; l i 1 mm even if a man spends his entire life trying to 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 §§38 For years now, expatriate American writer solve that mystery and fails, he will not have 39 40 4 3 Thomas E. Kennedy has been publishing short wasted his time.” fiction in literary journals across the United These could be the words of the writer, as he 42 43 44 States and Europe. Drive, Dive, Dance, & explores the life of a divorced pathologist in 45 •1.. Fight is his second short story collection in a “A Clean Knife” or that of a woman suffering 47 48 Ifl body of work that includes stylish speculative from a bizarre fear in “Dust.” There are no SHE?w . 50 51 52 53. 55 S6 fiction, critical studies of Andre Dubus and clear-cut answers, no easy ways out, but there Wf< Robert Coover, and The American Short Story is often beauty and sometimes triumph. mm 5? 58 59 Today. He has also edited collections of Dan­ The title story is about Twomey, a man 60 63 62 ish fiction and new Irish writing while serving down on his luck, who seeks to overcome his iv as overseas editor for the esteemed Cimarron fears. He makes a list of the things he’d always 63 gjl 64 m 65 Review. In spite of these accomplishments, wanted to accomplish drive, dive, dance, and Kennedy’s work is not as well known as it fight, and sets out to achieve his goals. Funny, 66 6 7 i n 68 should be. sad, scary, and deeply moving, this is also a An alternative title for this, his most recent story of hope. book, might be Men on the Verge of a Mid-life Thomas E. Kennedy knows about a lot of Crisis. Many of these stories are about men things — martinis, Danish witches, death rot, Across Down who find themselves in wrecked or fading dust — and it is these details that make his sto­ 1. Pop 1. Where th in g s come a p a rt relationships, wondering about the choices ries so vivid and, at times, delightfully quirky. 5. Like some books 2. Ballet position they have made earlier in life. He is well aware of the absurdities of modem 9. Stats for McGuire 3. Woman in the news in 1997 13. Oklahoma c it y 4. New room The title character in “Bonner’s Women,” American life, his perspective enhanced, per­ 14. ____ware S. Sch. fo r s a ilo rs the lead-off story, “has just entered what he haps, by his distance as an expatriate. He is 16. Drying oven 6. Local rock group? thinks of as late youth.” His early youth is also deeply sensitive to the struggles of ordi­ 17. Ju st a b it 7. Supporter of the arts 18. Twangy 8. Ties behind him, memorialized in knickknacks in nary lives. 19. Pinnacle 9. Sunday fa re s his childhood home. His mother, however, has The final story, “Landing Zone X-ray,” con­ 20. Woman in the news in 1998 10. Common ailm ents forgotten everything, including the death of cerns a middle-aged man remembering the 23. Former treaty org. 11. "____face re d !” 24. PGA's Ernie 12. Joan o f A rc, fo r one her favorite son, Martin. arrest of his friend who had been A.W.O.L. 25. LAX stat 15. Clinton or Bush The ghost of another Irish expatriate writer and hiding out in his apartment during the war 26. Corporate ending 21. Swindle haunts this story. The weight of accumulated in Vietnam. Although the war was a turbulent 28. Ab, fo r one 22. Kind of surgeon memories and the Christmas holidays bring to time in this man’s life and in the history of the 31. Prefix'meaning "one’s 27. Hip eateries own” 28. Davis of jazz mind “The Dead.” At the end of the story, United States, he feels no regret: “This is my 34. One of the bright stars 29. Swedish given name Bonner sits by the window watching the snow story, the story of my time... All the dead men 38. Bod computer? 30. "Or ___!" fall while his wife sleeps, just as Gabriel does and all the women will turn their hollow gazes 39. Woman in the news in 1992 31. " ____ Rhythm" 42. Cheerio ingredient 32. Pricey in Joyce’s masterpiece. toward us then, and I do not think we will wish 43. Cancel 33. Meddle Kennedy’s characters often pay homage to that we had done more or less or something 44. Start of N. Carolina's 35. P o rtio n their heroes, literary and otherwise. Or at least else.” Here is a man at peace, no longer motto 36. Singers syllable 45. fashions 37. 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Kenneth Evett est models and that is easily titillated by anal-retentive or incontinent extremes of Recently I was invited to talk about my expression. art work to an audience of my contempo­ As one of the many American artists raries at a local affluent old folk’s home. who has never received the sanction of To prepare for the event I hauled paint­ art-world authorities, I know that their ings out of the attic that I had produced indifference or rejection is hard to bear. since I first discovered the magical medi­ Even so, I believe that there is more to an um of watercolor at Yaddo forty years artist’s work than assessments of style, ago. It turns out that I have been prodigal­ influences, social milieu and rankings. ly prolific, painting hundreds of on-the- Therefore, since no one else will do it for spot watercolors in fourteen countries of me, I would like to proclaim the existence the Western world, on nine islands and in of an approach to the act of painting that eight of the United States. combines direct observation of the world Driven by a compulsive puritanic need of forms with the use of abstract geome­ to be responsible for every creative move try. I make, I began to alter these old paint­ This orientation to the creative process ings to conform to my current sense of is based on the use of a flat, bounded rec­ order and fate, and, as a result, I have tangular surface with an intrinsic sym­ become even more aware of the thrilling metrical centerpoint that relates to a mys­ power of abstract design. The slightest terious sense of a symmetrical center in change I made jiggled the rhythms into the human body. In that fixed link, the new alignments that required adjust­ center is stable and all shifts to asymme­ ments, and as one thing led to another I try in the field of vision and on the picture was willing to employ unorthodox means plane (whether left-right or up-down) are of erasure and addition that I once • S'x-’S:;-::": dynamic, unsettling, and generate ten­ deplored in order to carry on the process sions that demand a return to equilibrium to a resolution, even though it might lead and a resolution. The challenge presented to ruination of the original work. It rarely by this conflict has stimulated my cre­ did so, and now the second floor of our ative efforts for a lifetime, and my way of house is awash with relentlessly orga­ dealing with it seems to me special in nized, somber or joyful paintings that are method and special in result. What to my over-fond eyes the best American emerges in the process is a visual distilla­ watercolors produced since the work of tion of an experience of the sights, John Marin. sounds, moods, odors and natural condi­ When I painted my first watercolor in tions of a particular place and time. In the fifties, Abstract Expressionism was such a composition, the chaotic variety of the dominant mode of the day, and as a nature is seen as motifs of color, shape, conventional American artist I wanted to texture, contours and axial movements be up-to-date and to avoid the dread sin of that can be organized in patterns of two- being academic. At the same time, I dimensional geometry (triangles, rectan­ admired the watercolors of Marin and gles, circles, ovoids and parallelograms, Cezanne and aspired to emulate their or letters, XST) or musical numbers, method of working directly from nature. duets, trios or quartets. These form a web In order to accommodate that practice to of mathematical structure across the sur­ the rituals of action painting, which face of the painting, and when interior required spontaneous improvisation and repetitions of the horizontal and vertical risk taking, I tried to devise a system that boundaries of the initial rectangle exist, a would include the advantages of each. I classic base is established that can gener­ would venture outdoors from my isolated ate both excitement and serenity. Howev­ house-studio at Yaddo, sit down on a er, the act of putting forms together is still portable stool in an adjacent meadow, a mystery to me. The irresistible impulse watercolor equipment on hand, and while to relate one thing to another becomes an being set upon by mosquitos, size up the absorbing adventure, and once the exact, abstract forces of the scene and, without essential connection is found, there guidelines of any sort, start the action occurs a miraculous click of satisfaction, with one stroke of a color-laden brush. like turning a lock with a key. Because watercolor marks penetrate the Watercolor painting is a form of callig­ paper with finality and resist modifica­ raphy, and while writing down one tion, the painter is always teetering on the sequence of intervals, I try to keep an eye edge of disaster. One. false move and he is on the other rhythms to determine how done for. In such a state of tension, the they are reacting to the newcomer. These prolonged effort requires intense concen­ gestures carry the imprint of individual tration, instant decisions and sustained touch. The resultant hand-made art object purpose. Yet sometimes the process is an innate expression of human scale engenders a state of transcendental happi­ and corporal reality that cannot be dupli­ ness at being there, contemplating the cated by mechanical means. For me, such beauty of the world and trying to depict it a creation becomes a distinctive, potent, truthfully, in harmony with the universe. and poignant artifact of an artist’s life. I believe that a system of working with­ I have never known another person who in limits (whether formal, technical, or sees what I see in my work or even environmental) stimulates the creative remotely values it as I do. My old friend, the conceptual artist Norman Daly some­ imagination and encourages daring visual ' — inventions that demand control. It follows times sees what I have put there and from this that I identify with the classic embellishes my simple creations with his art of the Mediterranean countries. In the own highly intelligent and original inter­ cultures of Greece, Italy, France, Spain, pretations. Otherwise, I feel professional­ and Egypt the wild energies of the visual ly isolated and am compelled to admit arts, their iconographic meanings, their that my precious nuances and immaculate oppositions and junctures are reconciled resolutions are either invisible to others, * without loss of vitality. Consequently, the or, worse yet, noticed and dismissed as immanent powers of abstract elements are obvious and boring. My only stratagem released and a haptic experience of art is for dealing with these chilling realities is made possible. to remind myself that painting watercol­ Such revelations are beyond the scope ors outdoors is one good way to experi­ of art-historical explication, and when ence the world and to believe that the critics base their judgments on the banali­ mountainous pile of elegant but unwanted ties of modern art history, their influence paintings that occupies my studio is at is perniciously restrictive. Powerful least a rare, private monument to the joys tastemakers like the arrogant bully of creation. Clement Greenberg, or the equally blind but less offensive smart New York intel­ Kenneth Evett is a painter and Emeri­ lectual Adam Gopnik merely reinforce tus Professor o f Art at Cornell University. the narrow predilections of an audience He is a frequent contributor to The Book- that is already disposed to demand the lat- Kenneth Evett press.