A Critical Friendship: Donald Justice and Richard Stern, 1946-1961

Correspondence of 1959 to 1961

CORRESPONDENCE OF 1959 TO 1961 CORRESPONDENCE OF 1959 TO 1961 179 January 16, 1959 | [Iowa City] Dear Dick & Gay, I meant to write long before this. By the time we got back here I was coming down with my traditional Christmas cold, a little delayed this time; after that there was the Kees preface to prepare,1 and some library work to do on it; and then the pile of manuscripts held over the vacation. I have today my first really clear day in weeks. Jean probably told you in her letter that she preferred Golk: at least that was my impression in talking to her about the two novels. I mention this first because I conformed to what you said was majority opinion in liking Europe better. Golk is more original probably, but its very originality seems to me to put such a burden on the invention that it sometimes buckles under. I still think this is especially true of the first chapter, that is, following the wonderful beginning in the rug shop. I simply cannot see this bookstore business with Hondorp as a potential Golk,2 even as it is “justified” later—for one thing, the justification is after the fact. The chess scene, too, though much improved over the first version, still strains my belief. Some of the sex seems gratuitous to me. And the style—though this may have been straightened out, at least for the most part, in the “600 verbal changes”—doesn’t seem to me quite to sustain itself. By this I mean that some of its propositions are overelaborate, that some of its small jokes aren’t necessary, that sometimes its Jamesian roundaboutness fuzzes the point, and that the diction relies too much sometimes for its humor on the long and fancy word—now this last effect is very good at times, esp. when it is possible to see the other factor in the style, the oddly intrusive low-class or even vulgar word sticking its nose into a high-class context, but not as so constant a diet, I think. I am in love with the whole conception just as I was at the beginning, but I do have these reservations about the way it was carried out. Papa Hondorp3 seems very good almost all of the time, and Golk and Hondorp seem good most of the time; even the higher-ups have their moments, but the others in Golk’s crew don’t seem to come up to their potential—as they would, say, if this were the Moby Dick of the television industry—except maybe for Hendricks4 when she and Hondorp go into the country, and when she leaves him. The sense of New York, its geography and landmarks, is good and satisfying all 180 CORRESPONDENCE OF 1959 TO 1961 the way, too. It’s so savage and original and at times so funny that it ought to be published and to get some notoriety, though. Even so, I’d think you ought to be willing to work on improving it if any publisher had not merely ridiculous suggestions, ones that would change the whole rather than the parts. The problems of structure in Europe seem to me to be solved: that must have been one of the hardest things to do, but the structure ends up seeming natural and unforced to me. In fact, very neat. There are only a few parts that I would criticize. The first part of the first chapter seems to me to scatter its effects in random perceptions and small jokes: the details of the life are so densely given that it leads one to expect similar treatment of everything, and this promise is not carried out (which is probably good). I think the weakest scene, though, is the scene in Gladys’5 apartment, the dinner at which she is insulted: the motives of the characters, particularly of the insulter, aren’t visible to me. The “philosophical” discussions, the comments about German national character, in other places seem to go on too long. The discussion about the art of the novel, which you seemed worried about, seems more interesting to me, though definitely questionable: personally, I am inclined to give you this, though others may not be. I find it interesting (though not really necessary). Ward6 is a little disappointing, esp. in the next to last section dealing with him, but not...