The Fifties : from notebooks and diaries of the period PDF
Preview The Fifties : from notebooks and diaries of the period
EDMUND WILSON r ~ ~.~e · p~· ~les Edited with an in LEON ED BOOKS BY EDMUND WILSON AXEL'S CASTLE THE TRIPLE THINKERS TO THE FINLAND STATION THE WOUND AND THE BOW THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION MEMOIRS OF HECATE COUNTY CLASSICS AND COMMERCIALS THE SHORES OF LIGHT FIVE PLAYS RED, BLACK, BLOND AND OLIVE A PIECE OF MY MIND THE AMERICAN EARTHQUAKE APOLOGIES TO THE IROQUOIS WILSON'S NIGHT THOUGHTS PATRIOTIC GORE THE COLD WAR AND THE INCOME TAX OCANADA THE BIT BETWEEN MY TEETH EUROPE WITHOUT BAEDEKER GALAHAD and I THOUGHT OF DAISY A PRELUDE THE DUKE OF PALERMO AND OTHER PLAYS THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS: I947-1969 UPSTATE A WINDOW ON RUSSIA THE DEVILS AND CANON BARHAM THE TWENTIES LETTERS ON LITERATURE AND POLITICS THE THIRTIES THE FORTIES THE FIFTIES THE FIFTIES Edmund Wilson, circa 1952 EDMUND WILSON The Fifties From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period Edited with an Introduction by Leon Edel FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX NEW YORK Copyright © I 986 by Helen Miranda Wilson Introductory material copyright © I 986 by Leon Edel All rights reserved First edition, I 986 Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada by Collins Publishers, Toronto Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilson, Edmund, I895-I972. The fifties : from notebooks and diaries of the period. Includes index. 1. Wilson, Edmund, I895-I972-Diaries. 2. Authors, American-2oth century-Diaries. 3· Critics-United States-Diaries. I. Edel, Leon, I907- II. Title. PS3545.I6245Z464 I986 8I8'.52o3 [B] 86-9997 Parts of this book appeared originally in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, and The Paris Review. CONTENTS Editor's Foreword ix Edmund Wilson in the Fifties by Leon Edel xiii Chronology xxxi THE FIFTIES I95o-1954 "Nothing but Deaths," 195o-1952 3 Charlottesville, 1952 23 Talcottville, 1952 32 Princeton, 1952-1953 44 Richmond and Washington, 1953 52 Talcottville, 1953 69 London and Oxford, 1954 97 Paris 151 Salzburg 167 Germany 177 Rapallo and Max Beerbohm 194 Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls 213 Return to France 248 WellHeet and Talcottville 262 v vi CONTENTS '955-1959 Auden in New York 29I T alcottville, I 955 309 Wellfleet and New York, I955-I956 344 T alcottville, I9 56 356 Europe, I956 368 Wellfleet and Cambridge 3¢> Talcottville, I957 4I6 Visit to Nabokov 422 Talcottville Again 429 Cambridge and Robert Lowell 450 The Iroquois, I957 455 Indian Ceremonies 479 Wellfleet, New Haven, New York, I958 5I8 St. Regis and Onchiota 542 Djuna Barnes 550 Talcottville, I958 557 Deganawida's Prophecy 567 Wellfleet 582 Toronto 592 Wellfleet, New York, Talcottville 6o3 Tonawanda 6I2 Talcottville, I959 627 Index 645 ILLUSTRATIO;.'\S Facing page Edmund Wilson, circa 1952 l1l Elena, Helen, and Edmund Wilson, Wellfleet 30 Barbara and Jason Epstein, Rome, 1954 104 Mamaine Paget Koestler 104 Elena and Helen Wilson, Salzburg, 1954 105 Edmund Wilson in upstate New York 270 The Stone House in Talcottville 270 Lillian Burnham, Dorothy Sharp, Huldah Loomis, Helen and Rosalind Wilson; Edmund Wilson and John Gaus; Fern and Otis Munn and Jane Gaus, Talcottville, 1955 274 Elena, Helen, and Edmund Wilson; Reuel Wilson; Henry and Daphne Thornton, Wellfleet, 1957 436 Eastern Iroquois settlements 484 The healing rite of the Falsefaces 484 Elena and Edmund Wilson and Leon Edel, Wellfleet, 1958 538 Acknowledgment is made to George Weidenfeld & l\'icolson for permission to reproduce the photo of Mamaine Paget Koestler published in Living with Koestler ( 198 5 ); and to the New York State Museum and Science Ser\'ice for the painting by Ernest Smith facing page 484. vii EDITOR'S FOREWORD Edmund Wilson kept his diaries and journals of the fifties with much greater regularity and in a more systematic way than during his earlier years. Age and domestication, regularity of habits and fewer wanderings, contributed to this. Where he used to make sporadic entries at irregular intervals, he now kept track of his dates; by using his calendar as guide he constructed a largely retrospective journal. This means that the dates, when they are given, refer not to the time of writing but to the happenings and encounters of a recent time. Evidence points clearly now to an intention to publish his journals: and he planned, if he had an opportunity, to introduce further retrospective passages, as he did in The Twenties, which was incomplete at the time of his death. The manuscripts comprising the present volume are a mixture of neatness and scribble. There were days when he wrote with copybook care. On other occasions his pen would run away with him; he would be impatient and abbreviate words and reduce names to initials. I have in most cases expanded these abbreviations but IX
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