Letters (98 page)

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Authors: Saul Bellow

BOOK: Letters
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My dear friend Stephen Motika traveled with me to Chicago to help with the early stages of research. Brett Hool, Lindsay Alexander and, especially, Patrick “Memphis” Callihan transcribed endlessly and accurately. Patrick has additionally given yeoman service in securing photographic permissions. My freelance editor, Kristin Camp Sperber, was unfailing in precision and insight. Janet Biehl, my copyeditor, saved me from many a blunder. All those at Viking Penguin who have labored long have my thanks: Carolyn Carlson, Beena Kamlani, Amanda Brower, Shannon Twomey and Francesca Belanger. At
The New Yorker
, where an excerpt from this book appeared, I got to know the surpassing professionalism of David Remnick and Katherine Stirling.
Without the ferocious advocacy of Andrew Wylie and Jeffrey Posternak, agents to the Estate of Saul Bellow, this book could not have come to be. I am also grateful to their colleague Alexandra Levenberg, who cheerfully and expertly addressed issue after issue. Walter Pozen, Saul Bellow’s lawyer, has been an essential guide and occasional Dutch uncle. Good, wise, sharp-eyed Joel Conarroe read every blessed word of the proofs. To Philip Roth, a godfather to these pages, I owe incalculable debts.
I’d like also to thank Saul Bellow’s young daughter Rosie (cat lover, violinist, deep thinker) for her friendship, and for telling me off on one occasion, when I deserved it. To Rosie’s mother, the gifted and indefatigable Janis Freedman Bellow, who photocopied all letters leaving Bellow’s desk during the last twenty-three years of his life, I am boundlessly grateful: for her scholarly foresight, for the trust she has reposed in me, and for her warmth and wit in fair and foul weather. Were it within my purview to dedicate this book I would do so to J. F. B.
Finally, I want to thank Saul Bellow for the privilege of spending each afternoon of the last three years with him.
INDEX
 
Page numbers in
bold
indicate correspondence with individuals.
 
Abel, Lionel
 
absurdity
 
The Actual
(Bellow)
 
Adams, Alice
 
Adams, J. Donald
 
adolescence
 
The Adventures of Augie March
(Bellow)
 
completion and revisions
 
Dean Borok and
 
discussions about
Augie March
 
enthusiasm for writing
 
episodic nature
 
excerpt
 
publication of chapters
 
reviews
 
“The Adventures of Saul Bellow” essay
 
age and aging
 
coping with
 
death and
 
fatigue and
 
forgetfulness
 
old friends and
 
old men in novels and plays
 
thoughts on
 
Agnon, S. Y.
 
agnosticism
 
Air India plane crash
 
alchemy of writing
 
alimony
 
Alison, Barley
 
Alison, Michael
 
All Marbles Still Accounted For
(unfinished novel)
 
All The King’s Men
(Warren)
 
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
 
American Communist Party
 
American writing and writers
 
Augie March
and
 
Bernard Malamud and
 
discussion of
Invisible Man
 
distinct identity of
 
Ellison on purpose of fiction
 
exposing the seeming
 
Ames, Elizabeth
 
Amis, Martin
 
Anderson, Sherwood
 
Anne Bradstreet
 
(Berryman)
 
Anon
(journal)
 
Anthony, Joseph
 
anthropology
 
anthroposophy
 
anti-Semitism
 
Christopher Hitchens and
 
Ezra Pound and
 
Hannah Arendt and
 
Harvard Shop Club speech
 
Jerusalem Book Fair and
 
Jewish writers finding their place and
 
reviews of
The Dean
and
 
Ruth Wisse’s article on
 
Apple, Max
 
Arendt, Hannah
 
Army service
 
art
 
artistic principles
 
emergence vs. imposition of positions in
 
foundation of
 
non-definitive answers of
 
power of individual speech and
 
“prepared” attitudes and
 
value of
 
writers as prophets
 
Asher, Aaron
 
atheism
 
Atlantic Monthly
 
Atlas, James
 
Auden, W. H.
 
Auerbach, John
 
aging and illnesses
 
Bellow’s services to the arts award
 
Bellow’s seventy-fifth birthday
 
Boston University
 
discussion of Borges
 
divorce from Alexandra
 
each other’s writing
 
health, writing, and Israel
 
Kibbutz S’dot Yam
 
politics
 
stroke suffered by
 
visits to Vermont
 
Austin, Lyn
 
avant-garde
writing
 
 
Baldwin, James
 
Bard College
 
Barfield, Owen
 
Barfield’s judgment of Bellow’s novels
 
Bellow’s study of Barfield’s writings
 
death of
 
discussions of Israel
 
discussions of Steiner
 
discussions of writing
 
meetings with
 
Barshevsky, Yetta
 
Barzun, Jacques
 
Bazelon, David
 
anthropology
 
Bellow’s advice about writing fiction to
 
Bellow’s plans to meet with
 
discussion of reviews of their writing
 
discussion of
The Victim
with
 
discussions of politics and revolution
 
mutual friend Margaret
 
opinion of Bellow’s writing
 
Paris and France
 
reading, translating, and writing
 
remarks on Rome to
 
University of Minnesota
 
Beach, Joseph Warren
 
The Beacon
 
Begin, Menachim
 
Behrstock, Julian
 
Bellevue Hospital
 
Bellow, Adam (son)
 
affection for
 
college career of
 
conversations with
 
correspondence with
 
custody and parenting issues
 
infancy and childhood
 
visits with
 
Bellow, Alexandra Ionescu Tulcea
 
career in mathematics
 
divorce from
 
mentioned
 
Romanian family of
 
Bellow, Daniel (son)
 
affection for
 
bar mitzvah of
 
correspondence with
 
marriage of
 
mentioned
 
visits with
 
Bellow, Gregory (son)
 
childhood
 
college and
 
letter about alimony to
 
marriage of
 
mentioned
 
visits with
 
Bellow, Janis Freedman
 
doctoral studies of
 
marriage to
 
relationship with
 
Bellow, Maurice (brother)
 
Bellow, Naomi Rose (daughter)
 
Bellow, Sam (brother)
 
Bellow, Susan Glassman
 
alimony and child support issues
 
discussions of writing with
 
move to Chicago
 
relationship with
 
settlement payment
 
Belo, Abram (father)
 
arguments with
 
immigration and career of
 
money from
 
reaction to death of
 
relationship with
 
respect for
 
Belo, Liza (mother)
 
Bentley, Eric
 
Berghof, Herbert
 
Berlin, Isaiah
 
Bernick, Isadore
 
Berryman, John
 
alcoholism of
 
Bellow’s opinion of
 
children of
 
discussions of poetry and death
 
discussions of poetry and writing
 
friendship with
 
literary magazine work
 
suicide of
 
Berryman, Kate
 
Best, Marshall
 
bibliophilia
 
Billy Phelan
(Kennedy)
 
Birstein, Ann
 
Blackmur, R.P.
 
Blake, William
 
Bloom, Allan
 
death of
 
friendship with
 
illness of
 

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