I am very glad that you told me so much about your tastes in reading. Yes, Chekov is very fine. Mark gave me a paperback copy of the short stories by Isaac Babel for Christmas; and these are splendid, too. Like Chekov’s, but tougher and stronger without sacrifice of nuance. Some of them horrible. You no doubt know these, but if you don’t have them I’ll send you a copy. Another present, the Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon, the diary of a 10th century Japanese court lady, translated with excellent commentary by Arthur Waley, might interest you too. A society so innocent, so literary and so immoral. I was reminded of Helena Morley, not because Sei Shonagon resembled her in any way but because the diary has the same duality of innocent self-revelation. She’s awfully witty and a good poet too. I’ll send you this if you don’t have it. (I really love sending books to people who like them. So you musn’t feel embarrassed.) Another book Mark introduced me to this summer was R. H. Blyth’s four volumes on Haiku. A bit repetitious, but excellent on the poetry. Out of the modern “genre” of critical writings. Do you know that? Mark, you see, is so remarkable because he has such a huge range of interests and knowledge, (but is not “bookish” in a prideful or harmful way) and is able to see our era as part of a historical spectrum. That’s so easy to say, but he really does, so that no fashion sways him. He’s difficult to live with sometimes because he is usually right! His criticism of my analytical thinking makes me furious. But I’m grateful, and this book will be good, if it is any good, because of him and you. We are reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Ring” to little Caroline Margaret in the evenings after supper. Mark and I both love it, but it’s a little beyond Margaret. Do you know that? Epic in its proportions. The supreme fairy tale.
There are hundreds of things I could say about your letter, but I don’t want to write too much today because I think you should get this soon. Suppose I stop now to get this in the mail. Later on, this week or next, I’ll write again. I have a few questions about the newer poems. Oh, how I wish I could fly to Brazil, but I can’t see how we could ever afford it. England I know well — I married, quite disastrously, in England just after I graduated from Michigan in 1954 and lived in London for 6 years. Margaret was born there. At that time I never would have had the sense to understand anything, however. I look forward to going back. Love Ireland and Scotland, but Cambridge is queer, though queerly tough.
Much love,
Rio, February 16th, 1964
Dear Anne:
It was a compliment to be the “class aesthete” … Two friends & I were cartooned, at Vassar, with the caption “The Higher Type.” Thank you very much for offering to send me books, and I am going to accept the Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon, because I’ve heard so much about it. But if it is at all expensive you must let me pay for it. I have already given away here two copies of that edition of Isaac Babel you mention, so you see what I think of him. He is superb. That brief account of the Reds taking over an old monastery (my copy’s up in the country so I can’t give the title) is one of the most beautiful short pieces of reporting I know. — He’s the other writer besides Chekov I wish some Brazilian genius would come along and write like—except that Brazil is closer to Chekov, a decidedly “feminine” country and Babel is a masculine writer. If one should make these distinctions — but compared to England, or Germany, — Brazil is
I’d be grateful if you’d somehow make the point that my reasons for staying here so long are personal. I’d rather live in my own country if I could. But my feelings about both the USA and Brazil would look like seismographs during earthquakes, just during any week, no doubt. My last trip back was late 1961 and I was horrified by pre-Christmas New York — it had all grown so much worse. Now I am horrified by things here, as the situation deteriorates very fast. But no one outside the country can really understand what is going on so I won’t […]
Please forgive this long digression — I am really trying to cheer myself up — things are so bad here — by talking English. I have written several poems about Brazil recently — one you will see shortly in The New York Review, and another — a fausse naïve ballad, very long, in The New Yorker.
I am very sorry to hear about the miscarriage and I know they have very bad effects … When is it you are going to England? There is a slight chance that I may go there myself for a month or two, perhaps in April. I haven’t been for so long it is hard to get going, but I’d like to make a tourist trip and see literary things I didn’t see on my trips long ago. I once drove around most of Ireland and had a lovely time — probably before you were born! If I do get there I’ll certainly try to meet you somewhere.
Some of Robert Lowell’s poetry, the first two books, certainly, is very difficult — a few poems I never did understand until I’d asked him. But then they do make very good sense. He has written a few really lovely ones in the past year or two — lyrical, finished, — musical, too — two I think among his best poems. Randall, I think — well, I think that sentimentality is deliberate, you know — he is trying to restore feeling, perhaps — but I just don’t think we can believe in it these days. I think he was influenced some years ago a bit too much by Corbière. Frost is a complicated case — a lot of what he wrote about was just homely to me, after my Nova Scotia days, but the kind of things I have tried to avoid sentimentalizing. I hate his philosophy, what I understand of it — I find it mean—while admiring his technique enormously. “Two Tramps at Mudtime” for example — what is it but a refusal to be charitable? (and he was hideously uncharitable, conversationally, at least.) Well — as Cal says frequently—“We’re all flawed,”—and as far as poetry goes I think we have to be grateful for what we do get. They all rise above their flaws, on occasion. — I am interested in Berryman and wish he’d publish that long poem soon. I wish I knew something of Chinese poetry — a nice old ex-missionary teacher in Washington told me a lot about it the year I was there and enlightened me some — and I was properly impressed by the sophistication and elaboration, etc.
Shapiro, Winters, etc. — seem sad to me — the problem is how to be justly but impersonally bitter, isn’t it. — (Even Marianne Moore’s disappointments show through too much sometimes, I think — but then she is very Irishly cagey and manages by avoiding a great deal … She’s a wonder!)
No — I just have a couple of small paper-backs on the haiku — and I don’t know how good Donald Keene (?) is (they’re up in the country, too.) I have never read Tolkien’s work after one attempt several years ago — I didn’t seem to have time, so I couldn’t have liked it much! For children — well, I still think Beatrix Potter wrote a fine prose style … I admire Jemima Puddleduck, Tom Kitten, etc. very much, and have introduced the series (along with New England Fish Chowder) to many Brazilians. This is idle chat and I must get to work — I am glad you sound happily married — As a very stupid uncle of my friend Lota’s used to say*—“I prefer my friends to be rich. I like rich happy friends better than poor unhappy friends.”