Indeed, we may well have met somewhere, likely at one of the Ivy conferences — ‘The Hero in Classical Literature,’ something like that. Or one of those where salted peanuts substitutes for Brie, due to budget problems. That was CUNY, I think.
Pardon the hiatus. Due to the unsettled nature of things, I must periodically leap up to answer the phone, so that I can tell increasingly insistent callers that no, he’s not here, and, what’s more, I never heard of him. There are also occasional trips to the hallway to help bring in another piece of furniture. And someone is celebrating something on the floor below, and if I don’t have some champagne, it will be a grave offense.
So it is now tomorrow. Or rather, up there is yesterday.
I have looked over my previous letter and noted your comments on the situation in which the Appendix was written, and I am inclined to think that my tone was a bit harsher than was warranted. (I think maybe I’d just gone through a set of oral exams — no, it was something to do with thesis topics.) I must have been in the mood for some innocent’s flesh.
I retract my comment on the ‘neolithic revolution’; I simply wanted to point out that you could make your own statement a stronger one.
I reaffirm, however, my stand on ‘proto-’ vs ‘archaic.’ It is not simply a preference in terms — not when discussing philology, which you were. And speaking of old Latin puns, how about mea mater mala sus est? It translates: ‘My mother is an evil pig,’ and ‘Come, mother, the pig is eating the apple.’ Which reminds me: it was CUNY that had the awful hors d’oeuvres. I was wincing, both at the taste and at their linguistic punblication (I assure you, that was an unintentional typo!) CUNYforms.
All right, so maybe there was interchange between Trojans and Greeks. Kate from the Classics Department is even willing to argue that the Trojans spoke a Greek dialect. Then again, this would not be Kate’s only peculiarity. If you could hear some of her off-the-cuff etymologies…
The fact that the phrase ‘neolithic palaces’ does exist does not justify perpetuating the silliness. No way. In fact, old Threadneedle turned utterly apoplectic when he saw that. I didn’t realize emeritus professors had that much steam. I wouldn’t have shown it to him if I’d suspected what he’d do. The worst part is not his anger, which is sometimes almost comic in its Continental excesses; he has unfortunately seized on Leslie’s name and is convinced that George Steiner has gone off and had an illegitimate daughter somewhere, and now wants to meet her.
Ms Steiner has done nothing to deserve this.
Thinking back, I may well have met her, and at a science fiction convention, of all places. (‘Scientifiction’? My dear colleague, one would think you’d been keeping company with C. S. Lewis; I am told he’s the last one who used the term consistently. They just call it ess-eff now.) Regrettably, your description of her doesn’t narrow the field enough. I met several very bright women of that physical type. In fact, I met several men of similar build and intellect, some of whom were named Leslie. Does she by any chance know Greek folk songs? In that case, I do remember her. She was the only other person who knew ‘O, Pnevmatikos.’ We were singing it while walking around Faneuil Hall, which would have made it Noreascon 1.
I’m sorry, I digress, and on a path which is probably opaque to you. I’m quite surprised that news of publication hadn’t reached you. Granted, you’ve been well off the normal paths, but science fiction fans have a way of leaking in everywhere; it seems odd that Ms Steiner herself didn’t drop you a line. I’ll keep an eye out for her, if for no other reason than to tell her so; as you point out, we’re more likely to have met than not.
Hiatus again. Hope I didn’t keep you waiting.
It is now considerably later, and I am considerably hungrier. A raid is being organized to find the most decadent food in the vicinity, and I intend to be in on it.
Until I hear from you again, I remain
Yours sincerely,
(signed:) Charles Hoequist, Jr
Appendix B: Acknowledgments
YOUNG WRITERS TAKE THAT most communal object, language, and perform on it that most individual act, creation. Years pass; and, doing much the same as they did when younger, older writers take an object now known to be, if not exactly private, certainly more idiosyncratic, individual to individual, than an empiricist philosophical tradition is comfortable with and perform on it an action now known to involve so many communal facts, from generic conventions and ideological reductions to just plain help, that the Romantic notion of ‘individual artistic creation’ becomes hugely shaky — if it has not, indeed, crumbled. The older writers have not necessarily learned “craft” any better than the younger; nor have they even — necessarily — learned more of the language itself. They simply have more interesting critical material in which to observe play.
For the communal aspects of both talent and tradition, then, I gratefully make these acknowledgments:
Frank Romeo’s film Bye Bye Love, about two small-town adolescents who journey to New York City and return, suggested a structure for the entire novel. But our almost daily conversations for four years, which covered the making of his second film, The Aunts (in which a present eye looks on a past moment), often touched on the encounters, the textures, the psychology, and the intimate details of life in upper New York State vis-à-vis life in New York City. They have left their imprint from first chapter to last.
Joanna Russ’s Kittatinny: a tale of magic (Daughters Publishing Co.; New York, 1978) supplied the image for Gauine. To anyone who sees any mystery or resonance in the closing image of that fabulous beast, I commend the tale from which — with permission — I stole it.
Ihab Hassan, preparing his paper ‘Cities of Mind, Urban Words,’ was generous enough to ask me a question. The ensuing correspondence helped me develop some of the conceits herein.
Walter Abish’s paper ‘On the Familiar’ (with its side glance at the unbearable) helped me contour much of the material in Chapter Nine.
Charles Hoequist, Jr, has entered into the spirit of Nevèrÿon scholarship so good-heartedly that his contribution must be grateful acknowledged.
Teresa de Lauretis introduced me, among her many generosities, to Umberto Eco’s work in semiotics; his essay ‘On the Possibility of Generating an Aesthetic Message in an Edenic Language’ (in The Role of the Reader, Umberto Eco, Indiana University Press; Bloomington, 1979) was directly stimulating.
Camilla Decarnin read, reread, and criticized the text in a detail for which any writer must be grateful.
Loren MacGregor added some mechanical corrections to Decarnin’s list for which I am most thankful.
Bernard Kay took time in his convalescence from a bout with lung cancer to make copious and useful marginal notes for which I thank him sincerely, and in light of which I have tried to make intelligent repairs.
Robert S. Bravard, of the Stevenson Library at Lock Haven State College, most graciously sent me two pages of cogent comments, which have been the occasion for much thought and — hopefully — some meaningful changes.
Marilyn Hacker read the manuscript and offered a number of useful suggestions. Once again, I am grateful.
My copy editor, David Harris, besides the usual haggling over commas and restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers, offered a number of suggestions for fine tuning to the content. I thank him for them.