Nov. 8 ’03
Dear Simsy14—
Hey, thank you for that copy of the RCF. I was pleased to see your essay,15 even though it’s hard as hell for me to read same intelligently, what with knowing absolutely nothing about Diane Williams16—not having read one word (of her or of anybody else under the age of seventy, it begins to seem). But you make it all about as vivid as it could be under such circumstances. In other words, you write nice. So indeed, yes, I want you “on my side.” For that matter, stop threatening and get to it, hear?
Yes, I know about that “other woman.”17 In fact she’s already delivered several essays at one conference or another in France. As did someone from Temple U. at an American Lit Ass’n thing in Boston last spring. Plus there’s the hombre presumably doing the one for RCF. So I repeat, kiddo — get to it.
You did see the Markson stuff in a much earlier (1990) RCF,18no? If we’ve mentioned this, excuse my ever more pervasive senility, eh?
Otherwise I wish I had some news — or at least something cheerful to say — but my under-the-weatherness is even more pervasive than my empty-headedness. Just awrful. DON’T GET OLD.
Speaking of which, it only lately occurred to me that tomorrow, around lunchtime, will be fifty years to the hour since Dylan Thomas died about four blocks from where I now sit. He was in a coma for approx. five days, and it was about three before that when I last chatted with him at the White Horse19 (also four blocks off). But good gawd — a half century ago?! Old, did I say?
Thine—
David
14 This was his first use of this nickname for me; for some reason he alternates, from here on out, between two spellings: “Simsy” and “Symsy.”
15 “Diane Williams.” RCF, Vol. XXIII, No. 3.
16 Diane Williams, American fiction writer, author of Romancer Erector and Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty.
17 FranÇoise Palleau-Papin, the French scholar who published This Is Not a Tragedy, the first book-length study on David Markson, in 2011 (Dalkey Archive Press).
18 “John Barth/David Markson.” RCF, Vol. X, No. 2.
19 The White Horse Tavern, at Hudson & 11th Street, was a popular Greenwich Village gathering-place for writers and artists (including David, Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, James Baldwin, and Norman Mailer) during the 1950s and 60s.
Dec 4 ’03
Dear Laura:
Do forgive the silence. I appear to have gone to 938,627 MDs since my last. No, only a few, just seems that way. // You’d never told me you were a poet, you know?20 So how’d I know? I sure do wish you luck on placing a book. // I just saw a first pre-pub review of my own new book,21 only Kirkus, but it appears I am single-handedly keeping American lit significant. I wonder if guys like Roth or Barth or DeLillo know that, poor deluded souls.
Meantime I turn 76 on 12/20. About eighteen months ago I was 27.
Thine—
David
20 I had, in my very first letter.
21 Vanishing Point.
Jan 8 ’04
Dear Symso—
Your cards numbered 1 and 2 actually arrived on consecutive days — in proper order. Occult activity at the PO.
I love it when galleys turn up in bookstores.22 The SOBs are supposed to be reviewing the books, not peddling them! But I’m pleased you got an early look — and hope you approve.
De Chirico is gone, however.23 At the very last minute they couldn’t get permission. Now a Ross Bleckner that looks like a seersucker jacket that ran in the wash, alas.24 But some folks seem to admire it, quien sabe?
I hope you had a well-celebrated birthday out there (I’m assuming you’re back — or surely en route). Thirty’s nice, all good things still ahead. (Would you believe Eisenhower was only halfway through his presidency when I hit 30 myself?)
Anyhow, all belated cheers — and my very best to you both.
Thine—
David
22 I told him I’d just stumbled on a galley of Vanishing Point at Green Apple Books in San Francisco. I was thrilled — he, less so.
23 The copy of Vanishing Point I’d found had a de Chirico painting on the cover.
24 The piece is called “The Arrangement of Things (1982).”
Jan 14 ’04
Syms-o—
Book en route to you from publisher.25 Indeed, it may get to you before this card, since with the wind-chill here well below zero, God knows when I’ll mail it. Ain’t goin’ out no matter what.
I’m pleased for you that Review26 is interested. Write nice. Spell good. Punctuate proper, etc.
And don’t comment on the damned misplaced modifier I let go by right at the beginning of the novel — which two beloved chums have already pointed out.
Onward—
Thine—
David
25 An official copy of Vanishing Point.
26 He means Chicago Review, which initially expressed interest in my essay on Markson. I used this early version as a template for the essay that would ultimately appear in The New England Review in 2008.
Mar 14 ’04
Simsy—
NO, I’ve no idea what a Blog is.27 BLOG? Do I want to see printouts or not? Nothing that will upset/annoy/distress me, pls., eh? Only if they truly make nice.
Hey, forgive the brevity, eh?
Thine,
David
27 I’d found a lot of interest in Markson on various blogs and had offered to send printouts.
Mar 25 ’04
Dear Symsy—
Hey, thank you for all that blog stuff but forgive me if after a nine-minute glance I have torn it all up. I bless your furry little heart, but please don’t send any more. In spite of the lost conveniences, I am all the more glad I don’t have a computer.
HOW CAN PEOPLE LIVE IN THAT FIRST-DRAFT WORLD?
They make a statement about my background, there’s an error in it. They quote from a book, and they leave out a key line. They repudiate a statement of fact I’ve made, without checking, ergo announcing I’m a fake when the statement is 100 % correct. Etc., etc., etc. Gawd.
I have just taken the sheets out of the trash basket & torn them into even smaller pieces.
Last week two several-hour-long hospital medical tests. Plus more MD visits to come. But I am also WORKING. I would rather spend an hour and a half trying to solve the roughest first draft of a note for the new book — that will eventually be endlessly rewritten — than ever ever ever read another word of the Internet.
Don’t be sore.28
Thine—
David
28 In my response to this letter, I wrote: “I’m so sorry to have tortured you that way — I had second thoughts but went ahead and sent the blog printouts. I have to say it was worth it to get your wittily enraged letter. Those ‘semi-literate’ bloggers were praising you, you know. They did get something right — the most important thing, in fact. Be well and light those toxic shreds of paper on fire if need be!”