Two recent emails, alerting me to two very different kinds of literary contests:
1. The first commemorates the long friendship between Joseph Brodsky and Stephen Spender. The Joseph Brodsky/Stephen Spender Prize, launched by Maria Brodsky and Natasha Spender, also celebrates the rich tradition of Russian poetry.
Details are here. You supply the original Russian, your translation, and some commentary. But do you translate a long novel, an essay, a few poems? It doesn’t say. Up to you, I guess.
The contest offers three prizes: £1,500 (first), £1,000 (second) and £500.
Entries must be received by August 31. Judges of the 2011 competition are: Sasha Dugdale, Catriona Kelly, Paul Muldoon.
(Valentina Polukhina, one of the supporters of the contest, wrote to let me know.)
2. Ms. magazine is celebrating its 40th birthday, and you are invited, too.
A group of Stanford faculty and Ms. editors are inviting you to submit a 150-word essay about one of the magazine’s 40 covers.
Ten $100 cash prizes will be awarded for the best short essays. Entries will be judged on originality, vision, awareness of feminist issues and quality of expression. Winning entries will be displayed alongside the Ms. covers on the Stanford campus in January 2012.
The contest will run from August 1, 2011 – October 15, 2011. Click here for more details.
There’s more: In January 2012 at Stanford, Ms. founding editor, Gloria Steinem, will offer a keynote address, with a month-long series of events that looks back on the history of the magazine.
The contest and the month-long series of events are sponsored by Stanford’s American Studies Program, the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Program in Feminist Studies, in conjunction with Ms. Magazine.
I met British author Paul Scott briefly, during a scholarship weekend decades ago at the Cranbrook Academy of Arts and Institute of Sciences – with its beautiful gardens and buildings by architect Eliel Saarinen, coincidentally, a mile or so down the street from my family home. A writer’s scholarship was heady stuff back then. Poetry and prose were separated like goats and sheep: the poetry folks were shuffled off for meetings with Galway Kinnell; the fiction people were sent off with Paul Scott.
Debonair and rumpled Galway was the charmer of the two – he charmed me, anyway, over biscuits and tea. Paul Scott seemed under the weather – an old tropical disease, was the rumor. To my eye, it seemed to have a lot to do with alcohol.
At any rate, in our small prose sessions, Paul seemed displeased with the lot of us. After dismissing one piece of writing after another, he came to mine – a short satire of Russian writers (take that, Elif Batuman!). “This is quite different,” he said, lifting his eyes to mine. “I can see what you must have been like as a child. You were quite brave, quite courageous.” I did not correct him, but met his gaze. Actually, he called it wrong. I had been quite timid and withdrawn.
The charmer
The Cranbrook week was over all too soon. But I didn’t forget him, and planned to meet him when I was a young intern at Vogue in London (yes, it was exactly like The Devil Wears Prada, and I felt very much like the Anne Hathaway character, except for the looks). So I was surprised to read in the news of his death, a few months after my arrival, of colon cancer.
I wonder now if that’s part of why he was “under the weather” before, in the lush green of a Michigan summer.
His newly published Staying On, a coda to his Raj Quartet, hadn’t grabbed me; it won a Booker Prize after his death. Like everyone else, I became a devoted fan of the Jewel in the Crown series years later – but by that time I’d had my own experiences in India.
Under the weather
Now, in 2011, two volumes of his letters have been published: Behind Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet: A Life in Letters, edited by Janis Haswell. The volumes are reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement here. An excerpt:
For much of his life, Paul Scott was the epitome of the struggling novelist. Dogged by self-doubt and money worries, tormented by writer’s block or inching forward painfully with a many-stranded narrative, his health and family problems exacerbated by a sedentary and often solitary lifestyle, he suffered for his art on a daily basis. Even success had its drawbacks. In a letter recording a lucrative paperback deal, he inveighs against “this coming and going and signing on the dotted line and being wooed by some crap publisher you don’t want to go to . . . all this is now a bit nasty, this is what I used to have ambitions for; and worked myself up into a tizzy just to meet this great man or this useful woman”. His frustration boils over on to the page. But the underlying reason for it is clear: “I’d almost give my right arm just to be left in peace to get on with The Birds of Paradise”. Some people really have no choice but to write, and Scott was one of them. As he himself explains, “The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right”.
Jewel in the Crown: Art Malik as Hari Kumar, Tim Pigott-Smith as Ronald Merrick
My own mega-volume of Scott’s Quartet is marked lightly with pencil in the margins. “For me, the British Raj is an extended metaphor [and] I don’t think a writer chooses his metaphors. They choose him,” Scott had said.
His biographer Hilary Spurling wrote:
“Probably only an outsider could have commanded the long, lucid perspectives he brought to bear on the end of the British raj, exploring with passionate, concentrated attention a subject still generally treated as taboo, or fit only for historical romance and adventure stories. However Scott saw things other people would sooner not see, and he looked too close for comfort. His was a bleak, stern, prophetic vision and, like E.M. Forster‘s, it has come to seem steadily more accurate with time.”
Thumbing through reminds me of why I loved his vision as large as the empire, his empathy, his humanity. And when he got it right, he got it right:
It will end, she told herself, in total and unforgiveable disaster; that is the situation. As she continued to look down upon the tableau of Rowan, Gopal and Kumar – and the clerk who no re-entered, presumably as a result of the ring of a bell that Rowan had pressed – she felt that she was being vouchsafed a vision of the future they were all headed for. At its heart was the rumbling sound of martial music. It was a vision because the likeness of it would happen. In her own time it would happen. … The reality of the actual deed would be a monument to all that had been thought for the best. ‘But it isn’t the best we should remember,’ she said, and shocked herself by speaking aloud, and clutched the folds and mother-of-pearl buttons in that habitual gesture. We must remember the worst because the worst is the lives we lead, the best is only our history, and between our history and our lives there is this vast dark plain where the rapt and patient shepherds drive their invisible flocks in expectation of God’s forgiveness.
Our man in Washington – lobbyist Jack Weldon of Patton Boggs
Yesterday, we pointed out the problems with politicians’ frequent invocation of “the American people” – followed by a generalization that could not possibly hold true for 300 million individuals.
I suggested it was simply a device to marginalize opposition. In other words, if “the American people” want such-and-so, and you do not, then you are cast into outer darkness. It’s a way to pressure you back into the herd.
In true Orwellian spirit, a colleague passed on this news item, suggesting just how much the term “the American people” has been used dishonestly, to mask political indifference.
Clearly, someone else is concerned about the misuse of the term “the American people” – that is, the American people themselves.
They have hired a high-powered lobbyist to push their interests in Washington. Jack Weldon of the firm Patton Boggs has been retained to help advance the American people’s agenda in Congress. Sources said Weldon will encourage lawmakers to see the American people as more than “just a low-priority fringe group.” A veteran Washington insider admitted that Weldon’s new client is at a disadvantage because it lacks the money and power of other groups.
Known among Beltway insiders for his ability to sway public policy on behalf of massive corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Monsanto, and AT&T, Weldon, 53, is expected to use his vast network of political connections to give his new client a voice in the legislative process. …
“Unlike R.J. Reynolds, Pfizer, or Bank of America, the U.S. populace lacks the access to public officials required to further its legislative goals,” a statement from the nation read in part. “Jack Weldon gives us that access.”
“His daily presence in the Capitol will ensure the American people finally get a seat at the table,” the statement continued. “And it will allow him to advance our message that everyone, including Americans, deserves to be represented in Washington.” …
“The goal is to make it seem politically advantageous for legislators to keep the American people in mind when making laws,” Weldon said. “Lawmakers are going to ask me, ‘Why should I care about the American people? What’s in it for me?’ And it will be up to me and my team to find some reason why they should consider putting poverty and medical care for children on the legislative docket.”
“To be honest,” Weldon added, “the American people have always been perceived as a little naïve when it comes to their representative government. But having me on their side sends a clear message that they’re finally serious and want to play ball.”
Paradigm: “Somewhere along the way people decided that this multi-syllabic buzzword was a quick and easy way to sound smart without the grunt work that comes with actual thinking. How many times have you heard a significant event be mislabeled as a ‘paradigm shift’ when in reality it’s nothing close?”
“The American people” – “Any statement that lumps together more than 300 million people is a gross over-generalization, if not completely false—so why do politicians insist on using this term? The label is rhetorically lazy because there’s bound to be more specific common ties within an audience than the mere coincidence of being born in the same country.” I agree with the writer who said “the phrase is purposefully exclusive. By squeezing everyone together under one umbrella, people who don’t fit are left out in the rain.” But my reasons are different – I think it is said precisely to marginalize opposition.
Literally – “’Literally’ used to be a useful modifier that helped differentiate between real and figurative language, but now it’s merely a pre-emptive adverb for teens and tweens who don’t want their audience to think they’re lying. It’s literally an epidemic.”
From Mediabistro’s Twitter feed:
@TiffanyJWatts “Gamechanger” @JeremyDGoodwin “Incentivize” Can we add “Prioritize” to this one? @GablePR “Basically,” “Scandals ending w/ -gate or -meggedon” @TheIdeaIsIn “Out of the box,” “State of the art”
Heavyweight fighting is not normally my thing, but I became interested in it, briefly, a few years back with the publication of Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink. The book tells of the 1938 fight between the German Max Schmeling and the African-American Joe Louis. (FYI, Louis won, handily.)
The reason for my interest was its author. David Margolickand I go back – several decades, at least. We both worked at the Michigan Daily – but in that incarnation, he was a photographer, and a very good one. He went on to study law at Stanford, before he launched a career as a legal columnist at the New York Times and then a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. I had a chance to write about him a few years back.
Given my interests, naturally I zeroed on to his brief reference, on pp. 324-25, to Władysław Szlengel, the poet who had written about the fight in a Jewish daily:
He Louis! You probably don’t know
What your punches mean to us
You, in your anger, punched the Brown Shirts
Straight in their hearts – K.O.
David and I discussed the poet, who died in the Holocaust, during our phone conversation. Apparently, Szlengel continued to intrigue Dave after the phone call was over. He wrote about him in in the recent issue of Tablet, “Lost Words” (read it here).
Who was Władysław Szlengel? When I first encountered him, I assumed he was just one more of the 6 million. Had anyone remembered him or his work, his name would certainly pop up in the card catalog of the New York Public Library, but it never had. Nor had he been mentioned in the pages of the New York Times. So, I resolved to bring him back to life. Even putting someone’s name in print can be a rescue operation; mentioning Szlengel in my book, and including a small portion of his poem, was the best and only homage I could pay. Mine turned out to be an imperfect tribute: I misspelled his name. Not surprisingly, no one corrected me. Virtually everyone who could have, died at the same time he did.
The Felstiners (Photo: L.A. Cicero)
I passed on David’s Tablet article to two friends, John and Mary Felstiner, who have written about the Jews “creative resistance” to the Holocaust, which they expressed in graffiti, cabaret shows, poems, paintings and concerti – I wrote about it here. Had they heard of Szlengel? John’s reaction was enthusiastic: “Thanks so much, Cynthia! This is terrific, right down our alley, as you know. Now that you send it, I recall his name very well. But no, we didn’t come across him this time or I’d surely have found a place in our lecture and courses! It almost makes me want to do the course again!” Let’s hope he does.
The Tablet article evoked a few other associations. David mentions the work of Henryk Grynberg, who was also one of my contributors in An Invisible Rope: Portraits of Czesław Miłosz. Henryk commented, “If he [Szlengel] had written in Hebrew or Yiddish or German, he would be known … The feeling is, ‘A Jew who writes in Polish is not a real Jew, so why should we support him?”
Henryk wrote about Szlengel his 1979 article, “The Holocaust in Polish Literature,” published in the Notre Dame English Journal:
Szlengel left several poetic accounts of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. In his poem “A Note from the Daybook of the Action,” he describes the famous procession of theJanusz Korczakorphanage to the Umschlagplatz, referring to the situation as a “Jewish war … fought for life” and “a combat where death does not bring any glory.” He calls Korczak “the proud soldier, defender of orphans” who fought to the very end.
The most haunting poem he cites is “The Telephone”:
Henry Grynberg: a "Jewish war ... fought for life"
He longs to call someone outside the ghetto … So he dials the number Warsaw residents always called to get the time, wondering if its recorded voice, at least, remembers him. And she does, or appears to: 10:53 p.m., she tells him cheerily. Then, as she ticks off the minutes in the background, more than an hour’s worth of them, Szlengel summons up his former life in free, urbane, prewar Warsaw – watching Gary Cooper at a local movie theater, passing newsstands and neon lights and tramcars and sausage vendors, looking on as young lovers walk arm-in-arm along Nowy Swiat. And as his mind wanders through that world, tantalizingly near yet utterly inaccessible, he continues to listen gratefully to the pleasant-sounding woman at the other end of the line:
How nice to talk like this
With someone – no fuss, no pain …
You’re so much nicer than
The lovely women I’ve known.
I feel much better now –
There’s someone over there,
Someone who listens even though
He belongs to the other side.
Keep well, my faithful friend,
There are hearts that do not die.
Five to twelve – you say.
Yes, it’s late. Goodnight. Goodbye.
They missed the champagne, too. (Photo: L.A. Cicero)
I was visiting René and Martha Girardwhen they told me the news, but I got the details from the French press.
From Le Magazine Littéraire(you must suffer my translation below, but you are welcome to go to the original here):
The philosopher René Girard has entrusted his archives to the Bibliothèque Nationale. It’s a boon for the BnF, which recently acquired the archives of Claude Levi-Strauss, Guy Debord and Roland Barthes. René Girard, inventor of the concept of “mimetic desire,” spent his entire academic career in the United States, but he has chosen France for his archives.
The philosopher’s gift is accompanied by a partnership agreement with Stanford University (where Girard taught from 1980 to 1995), which will keep American researchers in contact with these valuable documents. The BnF participated in a second convention with the l’Association Recherches Mimétiques, which it will assist in the development of Girardian studies in France and abroad.
Bruno Racine, chairman of the BnF, welcomes René Girard’s decision and stressed that “this new addition gives glowing witness to the major role the BnF plays in the conservation and recovery not only of literary creation but of the entire intellectual life of the twentieth century.” The work of René Girard reflects this intellectual life precisely.
Author of 30 books, René Girard describes his concept of “mimetic desire” in his first publication, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, in 1961. His work quickly gained world renown, leading to his induction into the Académie Française in 2005.
According to Fabula: La Recherche en Littérature, he has made “a deposit, which will turn into donation,” with “a convention of partnership with Stanford University.”
As the Girards told me the spare details of the arrangements in their sunshine-filled Stanford home, they said the celebration was happening that night in Paris – in fact, just about the time we were speaking, I expect. I imagined champagne and crystal, toasting, tributes and laughter … and me not there!
René and Martha, however, seemed perfectly happy to be exactly where they were.
Two recent emails, alerting me to two very different kinds of literary contests:
Ten $100 cash prizes will be awarded for the best short essays. Entries will be judged on originality, vision, awareness of feminist issues and quality of expression. Winning entries will be displayed alongside the Ms. covers on the Stanford campus in January 2012.
