Letters

  Bellow’s relationship with

  divorce from

  dream of Ann (Birstein) Kazin

  Jack Ludwig and

  marriage to

  pregnancy of

  Tulcea, Alexandra Ionescu, see Bellow, Alexandra Ionescu Tulcea

  Tuley High School

  Tumin, Melvin Marvin

  advice from Bellow regarding women

  apology for not writing sooner

  on comedic writing

  correspondence with

  loss of contact with

  news of friends from Bellow

  on possible move to Europe

  reaction to Augie March

  report on Anita’s family to

  on writing process and Army service with

  on writing and having an agent

  Tumin, Sylvia

  Tureck, Rosalyn

  “Two Morning Monologues” (story)

  Ulysses (Joyce)

  Unancestral Voice (Barfield)

  the Unconscious

  Unger, Leonard

  unhappiness

  University of Chicago

  University of Minnesota

  University of Puerto Rico

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

  Updike, John

  The Upper Depths (working title for The Last Analysis)

  Vanguard Press

  Vargas Llosa, Mario

  Vermont residence

  The Very Dark Trees

  The Victim (Bellow)

  critiques of

  dramatization of

  financial failure of

  Guggenheim fellowship application and

  naturalism in

  second draft of

  Bellow’s evaluation of

  Vidal, Gore

  Vietnam War

  Viking Press

  advance installments

  Bellow’s correspondence with Marshall Best

  Bellow’s departure from

  Bellow’s loyalty to

  contracts for novels with

  Monroe Engel and

  publication of Augie March

  Village, Greenwich

  Volkening, Henry

  Augie March discussions

  becomes Bellow’s agent

  Bellow’s fantasy story about F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Bellow’s love for

  Bellow’s recommendations of to other writers

  complaints about Henle to

  correspondence with

  divorce from Anita

  dramatization of The Victim and

  editors and censorship of writing

  progress reports on writing

  publication of Bellow’s short stories

  summer travels

  writing and publication discussions

  Voltaire

  Wade, Grace

  Wagner College

  Walden, George

  Walden, Sarah

  Walker, Nancy

  Wallach, Eli

  Walsh, Chris

  Walter, Anne Doubillon

  Wanamaker, Sam

  War and Peace (Tolstoy)

  Warren, Robert Penn (“Red”)

  Bellow’s eulogy of

  Bellow’s nomination for Nobel Prize

  correspondence with

  Eleanor Clark and

  living in Manhattan

  news of mutual friends

  opinion of The Victim

  Warren, Rosanna

  Warsaw Ghetto

  Wasserman, Harriet

  Waugh, Evelyn

  Weidenfeld and Nicolson

  Weidenfeld, George

  Weingrod, Bracha

  Weiss, Theodore

  “The Wen” (play)

  West, Anthony

  “What Kind of Day Did You Have?” (story)

  Wheelwright, Jeff

  White, Katharine Sargent Angell

  Wieseltier, Leon

  Wilde, Oscar

  Wilkins, Sophie

  Willingham, Calder

  Wilson, Edmund

  “Winter in Tuscany” (article)

  Winters, Shelley

  wisdom

  Wiseman, Joseph

  Wisse, Ruth

  Wolff, Kurt

  women’s liberation

  Wood, James

  Woolf, Virginia

  World Jewish Congress

  world view

  World War

  “The Wrecker” (play)

  writers

  Alice Adams

  Bernard Malamud

  Cynthia Ozick

  Harold Brodkey

  imagination and

  Jean Stafford

  Martin Amis

  Meyer Schapiro

  motivations of

  opinions of

  Philip Roth

  as prophets

  Stanley Elkin

  thoughts on being a writer

  writers’ organizations, avoidance of

  writing

  arguments in

  authenticity and

  Bellow’s evaluation of

  Bellow’s views on narrative

  as business

  cognitive writing

  conformity as threat to

  craft of

  as cure for unhappiness

  desire to write freely

  “exposing the seeming” and

  fatigue and

  finding time for

  growing confidence in

  ideas as palpable element in

  Old and New Testaments and

  process of

  reclaiming of unreality

  rejection of

  short stories turning into novels

  sources of material for

  Symbolist approach to

  writer’s block

  Wylie, Andrew

  Yaddo (artists’ colony)

  Yehoshua, A. B.

  “The Yellow House” (story)

  Yiddish

  Yiddish Courier

  Young, Kimball

  Yugoslavia

  Zeisler, Peter

  “Zetland: By a Character Witness” (story)

  Zionism

  1

  French: Nothing is simpler.

  2

  Yiddish: Bit by bit, he’s coming into his own.

  3

  French: nightmare

  4

  Yiddish: in a fugue state, spaced-out

  5

  Yiddish: in general

  6

  Spanish: fucking son of a bitch

  7

  French: Judge for yourself.

  8

  French, then Spanish: To hell with the Whit Burnetts and other little bitches. May you lose your pecker one bloody day, W[hit] B[urnett].

  9

  French: There’s life’s purpose.

  10

  Yiddish: He proposes to fix me up with his daughter.

  11

  German: brotherhood

  12

  Russian: Farewell.

  13

  Yiddish: pain or woe

  14

  Yiddish: story

  15

  French: punching bag; fall guy

  16

  Yiddish: Just imagine!

  17

  Hebrew: May the name be blotted out!

  18

  In Macbeth, when Banquo and Fleance are ambushed, Banquo holds off the assailants and cries, “Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! / Thou mayst revenge.”

  19

  Yiddish: It pleases me

  20

  Yiddish: pure, clean

  21

  Yiddish: Enough.

  22

  Yiddish: mental aggravation

  23

  Yiddish: problem or trouble

  24

  French: But let’s move on.

  25

  French: What are you up to? All’s well?

  26

  French: It’s rather funny, in a comic-operatic way.

  27


  French: the general level

  28

  French: I say it myself.

  29

  German: vanished, sunk without a trace

  30

  German: the damnable Cameroons; fig., the boondocks

  31

  French: lit., at the foot of the wall; impoverished, up against it

  32

  French: which pleases me very much

  33

  French: extravagantly

  34

  German: and so on

  35

  French: worthy, meritorious

  36

  Yiddish: happy

  37

  Yiddish: exile

  38

  French: One has no business complaining.

  39

  French: without knowing it

  40

  French: sculpted funereal figures, lying supine

  41

  French: So I shrug it off.

  42

  French: That’s not so serious.

  43

  Italian: What will we do?

  44

  French: What besides?

  45

  French: the roving eyes

  46

  Yiddish: bastard

  47

  Latin: I will not serve.

  48

  French: Beware!

  49

  Hebrew: holy man or righteous man

  50

  Spanish: penitential garment worn to the stake

  51

  French: wonderland

  52

  Yiddish: loser

  53

  lucky

  54

  French: well and good

  55

  French: profession

  56

  French: your addled friend

  57

  German: Don’t be scared.

  58

  French: at first sight; lit., thunderbolt

  59

  Latin: Do not despair.

  60

  German: Please don’t forget me.

  61

  German: Ever thine

  62

  Yiddish: a sweetened dish of stewed fruits and vegetables; fig., an imbroglio

  63

  Italian: Answer, friend!

  64

  creeping, crawling

  65

  Latin: Let us therefore rejoice.

  66

  French: as he is

  67

  Yiddish: I’m barely getting by.

  68

  German: blood sausage and horseradish

  69

  French: For want of better company, one goes to bed with manuscripts.

  70

  Latin: old man Bellow

  71

  Yiddish: family

  72

  German: politics in the higher sense

  73

  German: and ready

  74

  French: lit. on the moon; unrealistic, out to lunch

  75

  Yiddish: hoodlums, thugs

  76

  Yiddish: cozy, down-to-earth, unpretentious

  77

  Latin: I love because it is absurd—a modification of Tertullian’s Credo quia absurdum , I believe because it is absurd.

  78

  French: Still pursued by women; worried nonetheless. An amusing situation. They’re all furious—north, west, and even here, but I continue to do my duty.

  79

  French: Above all, reasonable.

  80

  French: Type me a letter.

  81

  French: I’m eager to read what you’ve written.

  82

  Spanish: big problems

  83

  The bride is too beautiful? Fig., What am I complaining about?

  84

  Latin: moment of death

  85

  Yiddish: filth

  86

  Latin: De mortuis (nil nisi bonum dicendum est)—Speak no ill of the dead.

  87

  Yiddish and Hebrew: a worry

  88

  Yiddish: May you use it well.

  89

  French: under threat of penalty

  90

  Hebrew: friends

  91

  French: bent back

  92

  German: what it all means

  93

  Yiddish: impossible woman, ballbuster

  94

  French: It is necessary to be absolutely modern.

  95

  Warms (the heart) a little.

  96

  Latin: A word (is enough) to the wise.

  97

  French: I’m holding up pretty well.

  98

  French: nerve or cheek; lit., forelock

  99

  French: Bad taste leads to crimes.

  100

  Hebrew: “Strength unto you!”

  101

  Hebrew: “Be strong!”

  102

  French: “Everything passes . . . everything breaks.”

  103

  Yiddish: pests, bothersome people

  104

  Hebrew: the quorum of ten men required for public prayer three times daily

  105

  Yiddish: whores

  106

  German: sloppiness

  107

  Hebrew: soul

  108

  Yiddish: joy

  109

  Latin: While I breathe, I hope.

  110

  German: old-fashioned thermal spa or cure resort, e.g., Karlsbad, Marienbad, Baden-Baden, etc.

  111

  Yiddish: But it’s not a matter of life or death to me.

  112

  French: pipeline; fig., connections, pull

  113

  Hebrew: “Here am I.” When called by God in Genesis, Abraham says the same.

  114

  Hebrew and Yiddish: people of the city; here, more specif., dignitaries or worthies

  115

  Spanish: “Indignities of Old Age”: Goya’s etching shows an elderly man struggling to rise from his chamber pot.

  116

  pathological shortening of the stride and quickening of the gait; more loosely, frenetic activity

  117

  Latin: Make haste slowly!

  118

  French: the disordering of all the senses

  119

  French: No kidding!

  120

  French: want of manners

  121

  French: thanks a million

  122

  French: out of commission

  123

  Yiddish: pests, bothersome people

  124

  French: Let us go on!

  125

  French: relaxed, nonchalant

  126

  French: to cheer you up, old buddy

  127

  French: felled oaks, a phrase from Victor Hugo given currency by Les chênes qu’on a bat (1971), André Malraux’s account of his final afternoon with de Gaulle.

  128

  French: crippled veteran

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  PART ONE - 1932-1949

  1932

  1937

  1939

  1940

  1941

  1942

  1943

  1944

  1945

  1946

  1947

  1948

  1949

  PART TWO - 1950-1959

  1950

  1951

  1952

  1953

  1954

  1955

  1956

  1957

  1958

  1959

  PART THREE - 1960-1969

  1960

  1961

  1962

  1963

  1964
r />   1965

  1966

  1967

  1968

  1969

  PART FOUR - 1970-1982

  1970

  1971

  1972

  1973

  1974

  1975

  1976

  1977

  1978

  1979

  1980

  1981

  1982

  PART FIVE - 1983-1989

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  PART SIX - 1990-2005

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  2002

  2004

  EDITOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOW LEDGMENTS

  INDEX