He sent me Eliot's
translation
of Anabase for
review.
review.
Samuel Beckett
McGreevy dismisses George Bernard Shaw, whose satire and indignation he judges to lack universality: "Did a soldier ever read Bernard Shaw with pleasure before an attack?
" (17).
McGreevy dismisses Tristan Corbiere as a poet and as an influence on Eliot (26).
"Galere" (crew); "petit coeur de neige" (little heart of snow); "fesses" (buttocks).
3 SBreferstoapassageinMcGreevy'sThomasSteamsEliot:"Onecanimaginehow outraged Victor Hugo and Rossetti would be if they knew that forty years after they died there would be writers of genius who found the Lord God a greater source of inspiration than Marion de Lorme or Jenny" (37). Marion de Lonne (1829) by Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is a play about a seventeenth-century French courtesan of that name (c. 1613-1650). "Jenny" may refer to the poem of that name by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (ne Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti 1828-1882).
4 Spurred by a request from Richard Aldington, Rebecca West (1892-1983) men tioned McGreevy's Thomas Steams Eliot in her column in the Daily Telegraph; she com pared McGreevy to St. Augustine, saying that he "makes every sentence with the imprint of his personality, and a very delightful personality it is . . . This book is crammed full of profitable arguments" ("New Books," 23 January 1931: 15). While McGreevy appreciated her fiiendly intention, he had no admiration for West (McGreevy to Prentice, Sunday [25 January 1931], UoR, MS 2444 CW 41/2).
"Tant pis" (too bad).
5 JackYeatshadhis"athome"dayonSaturdays.
6 "Joyce's Gazetteer" may refer to an atlas owned by James Joyce or to one of the books by Irish geographer Patrick Weston Joyce (1827-1914): Irish Names of Places (1913), Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900), Philips' Atlas and Geography of Ireland (1883).
Paul Leon was working with Philippe Soupault, Joyce, and others to continue the translation of "Anna Livia Plurabelle" begun by SB with Alfred Peron; see SB to Soupault, 5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930], n. 1.
7 McGreevy sought commissions for translation from the London publisher Victor Gollancz (1893-1967) and from Charles Prentice, Chatto and Windus, to whom he had proposed to translate one of two monographs by Louis Bertrand (1866-1941): Philippe II a ! 'Escoria! (1929) or Philippe II contre Antonio Perez (1929) (McGreevy to Prentice, Monday [1 December 1930], UoR, MS 2444 CW 41/2; Prentice to McGreevy, 6 February 1931, TCD, MS 8092/29). As McGreevy explained to Prentice after the proposal was turned down: "For me it was only a question of being assured of sufficient money (for work that I should not be ashamed to put my name to) to enable me to go home for a couple of months or three and translate and work on my own at the same time" (Saturday [7 February 1931], UoR, MS 2444 CW 41/2).
Richard Aldington sent money to McGreevy, who, so assisted, chose to go to Florence rather than to stay in Paris (Aldington to Brigit Patmore, 9 February 1931, TxU).
66
24 February 1931, McGreevy
CHAR LES PRENTICE, CHATTO AND WINDUS LONDON
16/2/31 39 TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
Dear Mr Prentice
Thank you for your letter. I am glad to know that the date of
publication is fixed. Yes - ofcourse March 5th suits me perfectly.
1
anxious that the Proust should not prove a washout. I hope sometime to send you something more genuine & direct.
How did the Eliot go? 3 I read it & liked it. Very sincerely yours
Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf. 2 sides; letterhead: <coMMoN RooM. > A ins "39"' TRINITY coLLEGE, D u e LIN ; date stamped received 18-2-31; UoR, MS 2444 CW 24/9.
1 Prenticewroteon12February1931:"Wearepublishing'Proust'onMarch5th;I hope this will be O. K. Your presentation copies will arrive a few days before that date" (UoR, MS 2444 CW Ietterbook 31/576).
2 Prentice assured SB in his reply: "Your Proust,I think, will do very well; Proust himself has not a great many readers, but many people have asked me most curiously about your book, and the subscription sales in the country are promising" (18 February 1931, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 31/647).
3 Inthesameletter,Prenticewrote:"TheEliotisdoingverywell. Idonotmeanthat it is a best-seller; the sales, however, are developing very steadily, and, being in a series, the essay will have a good run to look foIWard to. "
THOMAS McGREEVY FLORENCE
24/2/31 39 TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
67
I did not expect it would be ready so soon.
After your kindness and the trouble you have taken I am
2
24 February 1931, McGreevy
My dear Tom
What kind of pieces are you going to master la-bas. I wonder
1
wont even squelch if stood on. I had a cable from American Bookman asking for a copy - after that bastard Pinker choking me off. I sent it along - without any enthusiasm. 3
This vitaccia is terne beyond all belief. Thursday, Friday &
Sat. we gave 3 plays at the Peacock - La Quema, Souriante Mme.
Beudet & Le Kid (Corneille & Bergson). They might have gone
worse. The inevitable vulgarisation leaves one exhausted & dis
gusted. We had a nice Cartesian Infanta in the Kid, inarticulate &
stupefied, crossing the stage to Ravel's Pavane. Trench was
4
when I hope to go away to Hamburg. That will be about 20th March. Does that mean I will miss you on your way through
5
brats. Cela me fait chier, wear a gown & say 'Yes sir' 'no sir'. When I've posted this I'll go & have a Turkish bath & stupefy my
7
At the R. D. S. yesterday afternoon the music was so tepid that I
was conscious of my neck. Impossible to hear any music here.
Yesterday they played one of Beethoven's last string quartets, a
8
why you are off Italy.
AnyhowyourEliotismakingsomenoise. IknowthatProust
2
delighted.
I scramble through lectures & chafe for the end of term
Dublin? Il ne manquait que cela.
To-night I have to go & eat with the Provost & his hostile
6
nerves in sweaty duration. My person is developing dirty habits.
Mendels[s]ohn Quintette & a Schubert Quintette. I feel that Beethoven's Quartets are a waste of time. His pigheaded refusal to make the best of a rather pettyfogging [for pettifogging] con vention annoys me. He needed a piano or an orchestra. And why do they go on playing that bloody Mendels[s]ohn! Verbalism & not very competent - Leventhal's conversation(. ]9 The Schubert had plenty of nobility and one understood the need of relating
68
his chamber music to his song settings. I don't know any chamber music that works so skilfully. A waste in conception - you know that lamentable pebble in the pond effect - but rigid economy of application. Alas! Why can't I tell you what I feel without getting on a platform.
I went to a doctor because my bitch of a heart was keeping me awake. He smothered my sense of importance with a con temptuous 'Smoke less'. So I try to smoke less.
Ruddy is always polite but drifting to a conveniently remote accessibility. Pelorson is a mystery. Charming sometimes & dreadfully rich in hopeful gestures. He has shown me a lot of interesting verse. I have written nothing since leaving Paris. I am reading 'Journal Intime de Jules Renard' . . . Odd things. 10
Forgive this futile and not even melancholy letter. In 20 years I may be fit to have friends.
If you look up the Esposito say I often think of them (actually true, though rather of myself evolving before them. ) I don't think you would have anything to say to Mario, but am sure you would like Bianca - & the mother. Remember me to the
Aldingtons if you think they would care for that. 11 I'll sent [sic] you a Proust as soon as I get one. I think it is due for March 5.
12
ALS; 3 leaves, 6 sides; letterhead: <cOM MoN RooM> A ins "39"TRINITY coLLEGE, DUBLIN ; TCD, MS 10402/17.
1 McGreevyhaddecidedtojoinRichardAldingtoninFlorenceforadrivingtourin Italy (Aldington to Brigit Patmore, 13 February 1931, TxU); Aldington encouraged McGreevy to choose their itinerary, which included Tuscany, and even plans to go as far south as Brindisi (Aldington to Charles Prentice, 5 March 1931 and 6 March 1931; UoR, MS 2444 CW 48/6). Prentice, who had backed the trip, hoped it would allow McGreevy to work on his novel (12 February 1931, ICSo, Aldington collection 68/6/1). James Joyce wrote to Harriet Weaver on 11 March 1931: "McGreevy has also left Paris. Some person or persons gave him an annuity of 300 £ a year to do original work, and
69
24 February 1931, McGreevy
Won't you keep me au courant. Love ever
Sam
24 February 1931, McGreevy
he has gone to Ireland via Italy" Uoyce, Letters of James Joyce, I, 303). "La-bas" (down there).
2 Besides the review by Rebecca West, McGreevy's Thomas Stearns Eliot had been announced by Chatto and Windus in an advertisement that mentioned it as "a short but pointed and distinguished study of a writer who has for some years been regarded by intelligent people as of paramount influence in modern letters" (Times Literary Supplement 22 January 1931: 54); it had been reviewed by H. F. in "T. S. Eliot," Time and Tide (12. 617 February 1931] 165).
3 SewardCollins(1899-1952),EditorofTheBookman:AReviewofBooksandLife(New York, 1895 - March 1933), cabled SB on 17 February 1931: "cou LD I s EE co PY you R FORTHCOMING STUDY MARCEL PROUST FOR POSSIBLE PUBLICATION IN AMERICAN BOOKMAN ADDRESS THREE EIGHTY SIX FOURTH AVENUE NEw Yo RK" (CtY. YCAL MSS 12, Series I. 2/42). SB did not hear from The Bookman until August 1933 (when it had become The American Review): "When it came we had rather an embarrassment ofriches, so far as articles on Proust were concerned. Mr. Collins liked it, however, and hoped to use it, but now feels that he cannot afford the space" (Dorothea Brande [1893-1948}, Associate Editor of The American Review, to SB, 7 August 1933, CtY, YCAL, MSS 12, Series I, 2/42).
Pinker had not pursued publication in America.
4 "Vitaccia" (It. , miserable life, wretched existence); "terne" (dull, colorless).
SB wrote "<Catie]> Peacock. "
The Modern Languages Society production of a French play at the Peacock Theatre
was an annual event at Trinity College Dublin; Georges Pelorson was in charge of the program of three plays. A comedy in Spanish, La Quema (1922), by the brothers Serafin (1871-1938) and Joaquin Alvarez Quintero (1873-1944), was directed by Walter Starkie (1894-1976), Professor of Spanish and Italian at Trinity College Dublin. SB suggested La Souriante Mme. Beudet (1921; The Smiling Mrs. Beudet), by Denys Amie! (ne Guillaume Roche. 1884-1977) and Andre Obey (1892-1975). Le Kid, a burlesque ofLe Cid (1637; The Cid) by Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), was devised by Pelorson with advice from SB and influenced by Henri Bergson (for discussion: Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 125-128; Dougald McMillan and Martha Fehsenfeld, Beckett in the Theatre: The Author as Practical Playwright and Director, From "Waiting for Godot" to "Krapp's Last Tape" ! London: John Calder; New York: Riverrun Press, 1988] 17-23).
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), Pavane pour une infante dejimte, for piano (1889; Pavane for a Dead Princess). SB generally refers to this piece as the "Infanta. "
Wilbraham Fitzjohn Trench (1873-1939), Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin.
5 McGreevyplannedtopassthroughDublinonhiswaytoTarbert,Co. Kerry,inthe spring. "II ne manquait que cela. " (That's the last straw. )
6 EdwardJohnGwynn(1868-1941). aneminentscholarofOldIrish,wasProvostof Trinity College Dublin (1927-1937).
"Cela me fait chier" (It really gets me down, literally, makes me shit).
7 At this time, Trinity College Dublin did not have bathing facilities; the Turkish
bath on Lincoln Place and another on Leinster Street were the two nearest to TCD.
8 The Royal Dublin Society's chamber music concert on 23 February 1931 was played by the Unity String Quartet. with the addition of a second viola and cello. The
70
program included the String Quartet in E-flat major, op. 127 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827); an unspecified Mendelssohn String Quintet (either no. 1 in A major, op. 18, or no. 2 in B-flat major, op. 87); the String Quintet in C, D 956 by Franz Schubert (1797-1828); Souvenir de Florence, String Sextet in D major, op. 70 by Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893); and the String Quartet in D major, op. 33 by Italian-born Dublin composer, Michele Esposito (1855-1929).
9 AbrahamJacobLeventhal•(knownasCon,1896-1979).
10 SBreadfromthefour-volume,posthumouslypublishedLeJournal,1887-1910of French writer Jules Renard (1864-1910) (Paris, F. Bemouard, 1927). See SB's notes taken from this edition in Pilling, ed. , Beckett's Dream Notebook, 30-34 (BIF, UoR, MS 5000).
11 The family of Michele Esposito included his wife Natalia (nee Klebnikoff, 1857-1944), their daughters Bianca Esposito (1879-1961), Vera Dockrell (nee Esposito, 1883-1967). and Nina Porcelli (nee Esposito, 1890-1970), and son, Mario Esposito (1887-1975) (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 84; J. Bowyer Bell, "Waiting for Mario: The Espositos, Joyce, and Beckett," Eire-Ireland 30. 2 [1995] 7-26; Michael M. Gorman. "Mario Esposito (1887-1975) and the Study of the Latin Literature of Medieval Ireland" in Mario Esposito, Studies in Hiberno-Latin Literature, ed. Michael M. Gorman. Variorum Collected Studies Series [Aldershot, UK: AshgateJVariorum, 2006] 300-309). SB took private Italian classes with Bianca Esposito at a school of languages and music at 21 Ely Place, Dublin; she "nurtured his love for Dante" (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 67-68, 630). SB had visited Italy in the late spring through the summer of 1927 to prepare for his final examinations in Italian and had stayed some time in Florence where the Espositos then lived (NhD: Lawrence Harvey, Interviews with SB. 92; Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 83-84).
12 "Aucourant"(uptodate).
THOMAS McGREEVY FLORENCE
11/3/31 39 T. C. D. [Dublin]
My dear Tom
A thousand thanks for all you say about my Proust. You
would have had your copy before now were it not for what Charlus would call an unhappy 'enchainement de circonstan ces'. My parcel was sent to Foxrock & I only got it a couple of days ago. And I have been paralysed with a most atrocious cold that shackled me to the fire. The wind for 3 days was terrifying, Siberian vitriol, and I got so nervous listening to it hoisting itself
71
11 March 1931, McGreevy
11 March 1931, McGreevy
to the one note behind my bedroom that I got ready to retreat to
the anthracite bosom of my family. Then it dropped and I felt as
1
After reading your appreciation of that essay I know that it is
worth more than I thought. I read the book through quickly and
really wondered what I was talking about. It seemed like pale grey
sandpaper, stab stab stab without any enchantment. It's too
abstract because my head comes breaking every now & then
through the epidermis for a breath of merely verbal enthusiasm.
It has the plausibility of a pattern, a kind of flat syllogistic drift,
like the fan of the long division sum in 'Portrait of the Artist': at its
best a distorted steam-rolled equivalent of some aspect or con
2
you, because I have the good-fortune to have your affection. I
mean you see your intuition as a formula. That is the only stim
ulus that I can find for your pleasure. As a merely critical exten
sion, what could be more blafard, gritty like the Civic Guard's
anus. 3 No sinewy membrane between it & its official motive - the
only motive that the most easy going public will give me any
credit for - Proust. I feel it tied somehow on to Proust, on to his
tail board, with odds & ends of words, like bundles of grass(,] jack
in the boxing under a kite. Not that I care. I don't want to be a
professor (it[']s almost a pleasure to contemplate the mess of this
job). And what the hell do I care for the sneers of the Faguets & the
Lansons & the Gwynns & the Brunetieres and all the Sorbonagres
when you write pleased with even the mutilated statement of
an identification & a participation effected a summer's day of
fathoms deeper than the little cormorant plunge of voracious
4
though I had had a tooth out after long fumigations.
fusionofaspectsofmyself. Thatiswhatyousee&whatpleases
curiosity. Iwon'tforgetyourletter. Ireaditontherailings,just as the sun took it into its head to bare its bottom over censored Dublin. - Douceurs. 5
72
11 March 1931, McGreevy
Seumas O'Sullivan asked me to review your Eliot for his
next number - after the one that is just coming out. I would
like to. I may?
He sent me Eliot's translation of Anabase for
review. I don't like Anabase - I think it[']s bad Claude! , with
abominable colour. The translation is very uneven. Good when
6
I'll come back to him. But I can't talk about Rimbaud, though I
had to try & explain the mystery to my foul Senior Sophisters. I
told them about the eye suicide - pour des visions - you remem
7
'Noire bise, averse glapissante Fleuve noir et maisons closes'.
So I repeated. Titter. I, in my innocence, couldn't understand, and
wondered could 'maisons closes' have tickled their repressions.
I told Pelorson who kindly explained that the joke resided in
8
Pelorson s'eloigne, toujours tres pris, tres melancolique, mal
aux yeux, au coeur, aux bronches, hallucinations, reves, seuil de
9
Berlin. He had a beautiful phrase: 'le diamant du pessimisme'.
I long to be away and ofcourse can't bear the idea ofgoing & can't understand why Hamburg, where it won't be warm & where I will be probably frightened. That's the latest cardiac
feather. Fear - followed by no genitive.
O'Sullivan said Alan was in Dublin. Pas vu. Stella said that
Cissie was asking for me & wishing to see me. Tonic or balm? 11 God bless now. Keep me in the current. And again - all that
he drops the text altogether. I've been reading nothing but Rimbaud - tired out by Renard. Oh a good name - foxy foxy.
ber. (Poetesde7ans). Guffaw. AstheyguffawedwhenIquoted:
the 'pissante' of 'glapissante'. Oh the bitches & the stallions.
lafolie&theusual. AlwaysaloneexceptwhenheorFrankcomes in. Ruddy s'efface. Had a rather terrible letter from Beaufret from
10
is good.
Sam
73
11 March 1931, McGreevy
Kindest regards to the Aldingtons.
12 ALS; 2 leaves, 7 sides; TCD, MS 10402/18.
1 In Proust's Le Cote de Guennantes M. de Charlus says: "'Etje ne parle pas seulement des evenements accomplis, mais de l'enchainement de circonstances"' ('"And I do not speak only of events that have already occurred, but of the chain of circum stances'"); the narrator comments: "une des expressions favorites de M. de Charlus" (a favourite expression of M. de Charlus's) (Le Cote de Guennantes in A la recherche du temps perdu, II, ed. Jean-Yves Tadie, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1987-1989] 583; The Guennantes Way, in In Search of Lost Time, III, tr. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright [New York: Modern Library, 1992-1993] 389).
SB's copies of Proust had been sent to him at his family home rather than to 39 Trinity College, Dublin.
From 6 to 8 March 1931 Dublin experienced easterly winds that changed to north easterly winds on 9 March.
2 SeeJamesJoyce'sAPortraitoftheArtistasaYoungMan,ed. ChesterG. Anderson (New York: Viking Press, 1964) 102-103:
The equation on the page of his scribbler began to spread out a widening tail, eyed and starred like a peacock's; and, when the eyes and stars of its indices had been eliminated, began slowly to fold itself together again . . .
It was his own soul going forth to experience, unfolding itself sin by sin, spreading abroad the balefire of its burning stars and folding back upon itself, fading slowly, quenching its own lights and fires.
3 "Blafard"(wan).
The Civic Guard was formed in August 1922, in preparation for the transfer of political power from the British to the Provisional Irish Government.
4 SB dubs as "Sorbonagres" a group of influential academic figures who were associated with the Ecole Normale Superieure, the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and Trinity College Dublin. The term was coined by Frarn;ois Rabelais (? 1494-71553) in Gargantua et Pantagruel (1532-1533).
Emile Faguet (1847-1916), Professor of French Poetry at the Sorbonne, defended the classical ideal and interpreted literary history with an evolutionary model (Maftres et eleves, celebrites et savants: ! 'Ecole Nonnale Superieure, 1794-1994 [Paris: Archives Nationales, 1994] 158): his five-volume Etudes litteraires (1885-1891) surveyed sixteenth- to early twentieth-century literature.
Gustave Lanson (1857-1934), Professor at the Sorbonne from 1897 to 1900, and Directeur, Ecole Normale Superieure, from 1902 to 1927. Among his writings are Histoire de la litterature fran�aise (1894) and Manuel bibliographique de la litterature fran�aise moderne, depuis 1500jusqu'a nosjours (1909-1912, 4 vols. ).
Edward John Gwynn, Provost of Trinity College Dublin (see 24 February 1931, n. 6).
Ferdinand Brunetiere (1849-1906), Professor of French Literature at the Ecole Normale Superieure from 1886 to 1904, advocated that art should have a moral purpose and that literature was governed by evolution; he edited the Revue des Deux
74
No reply from Bookman.
Mandes from 1893 to 1906, and wrote, among other works, Histoire et litterature {1884-1886), L'Evolution des genres dans l'histoire de la litterature (1890), L'Evolution de la poesie lyrique au dix-neuvieme siecle (1894), Manuel de l'histoire de la litterature fran�aise (1897). and L'Art et la morale (1898).
5 TheNassauStreetboundaryofTrinityCollegeDublinwascalled"therailings. " "Douceurs" (soft sweetness).
6 SBdidnotwriteareviewofMcGreevy'sThomasStearnsEliotforDublinMagazine, nor one ofT. S. Eliot's translation ofAnabase, a poem by St. -John Perse (ne Alexis Saint Leger, 1887-1975) which was published as Anabasis by Faber and Faber in 1930. Nonetheless, SB had closely read Eliot's translation which presents the French and English texts on facing pages.
SB compares the poem to the work ofPaul Claude! (1868-1955), a prominent figure in the French Catholic literary renaissance ofthe early twentieth century.
7 JulesRenard,LeJournal;"renard"(fox).
A Senior Sophister is in the fourth and final year ofstudy for an undergraduate
degree at Trinity College Dublin.
In 1871, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) wrote "Les Poetes de sept ans" ("Seven
Year-Old Poets"); the poem follows Rimbaud's two "Les Lettres du voyant" ("The Letters ofthe Seer") which set forth his program to explore poetic vision through a deliberate derangement ofhis senses. In this poem, the image ofa child who "dans ses yeux fermes voyait des points" (shut his eyes to see spots) leads to what SB calls the "eye suicide," the image ofa child deliberately grinding his fists into his eyes: "Et pour des visions ecrasant son oeil dame" (Squeezing his dazzled eyes to make visions come) (Arthur Rimbaud, Oeuvres completes, ed. Antoine Adam, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1972) 43-44; Arthur Rimbaud, Complete Works, tr. Paul Schmidt [New York: Harper and Row, 1975) 77-78).
8 JulesLaforgue,"XII,"DemiersVers:"Noirebise,averseglapissante/Etfleuvenoir, et maisons closes" (Black wind, downpour yelping, / Black river, and houses closed), (Poesies completes, II, ed. Pascal Pia [Paris: Gallimard, 1979) 215; Poems of]ules Laforgue, tr. Patricia Terry [Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1958) 183).
"Maisons closes" (brothels); "pissante" (pissing); "glapissante" (yelping). The guffaw ing students found "pissante" irresistible.
9 "Pelorson s'eloigne, toujours tres pris, tres melancolique, ma! aux yeux, au coeur, aux bronches. hallucinations. reves. seuil de la folie" (Pelorson is drifting away, always very busy, very melancholic, eye trouble, heart trouble, bronchial trou ble, hallucinations, dreams, edge ofmadness).
10 "S'efface"(keepsoutoftheway).
Jean Beaufret was in Germany studying the work ofMartin Heidegger {1889-1976); the phrase "'le diamant du pessimisme'" (the diamond ofpessimism) appears in a letter from him to SB.
11 SeumasO'Sullivan,speakingofAlanDuncan.
"Pas vu" (not seen).
Estella Solomons was a close friend ofSB's paternal aunt Cissie Beckett Sinclair.
12 McGreevy is in Italy with Richard Aldington and Brigit Patmore (nee Morrison-Scott, 1882-1965), Aldington's companion from 1928 to 1936.
75
11 March 1931, McGreevy
11 March 1931, McGreevy
SB wrote to Charles Prentice on 18 February 1931: "Many thanks for forwarding a promising communication from the editor ofthe American Bookman. I have sent him the Proust" (UoR, MS 2444 CW 24/9).
CHARLES PRENTICE, CHATTO AND WINDUS LONDON
13/3/31 39 Trinity College, Dublin.
Dear Mr Prentice
Glad to hear that Proust has got off with so many of the
Could I have another half dozen? I am enclosing cheque for 13/-. Is 1/- enough for postage?
Very sincerely yours Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; letterhead: <cOMMON ROOM, > A ins "39" TRIN ITY COLLEGE, o u BL, N ; date stamped received 16-3-31; UoR, MS 2444 CW 24/9. In another hand, figures to the left of the signature, related to the cost of six additional copies (see Prentice to SB, 16 March 1931: "The six copies of'Proust' will be sent to you today, and the balance of your cheque returned. I do not know yet how the sum will work out, but you are of course charged at trade terms, i. e. , at 1/4d. instead of 2/- a copy" [UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 31/9851).
1 PrenticewrotetoSBon12March1931:"Thebookhasmadeaverydecentstart. It was published last Thursday, and we have already sold 639 copies. When the reviews begin to appear, I hope there will be more exciting news to report" (UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 31/948). Rebecca West's review in the Daily Telegraph calls Proust "an excel lent work. for Mr. Beckett is a very brilliant young man," but warns that "his meta physics and his habit ofallusiveness" pose an intellectual challenge (6 March 1931: 18).
2 McGreevy's letter to SB has not been found, but SB's appreciation of his warm comments about Proust is evident in his reply of11 March 1931, above.
3 Prentice mentioned receiving a note from McGreevy about the cover of Proust: "Tom tells me I have done wrong in giving you a brown Dolphin. It should, he says,
76
12
few. Tomwrotemeamostcharmingletteraboutthebook. It is very good ofhim to think that I am worth labelling with a flag. I had not noticed whether the Dolphin was green or brown. 3
Monday[? 30 March to 13 April 1931}, Putnam
have been green; clearly I have been trying to steal you from Ireland. Will you please forgive? " (Prentice to SB, 12 March 1931, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 31/948).
SAMUEL PUTNAM, THE NEW REVIEW PAR I S
Monday[? 30 March to 13 April 1931]
Hotel Corneille Rue Corneille Paris 6e
Dear Putnam
Do you ever come up to town? I'd like very much to see you
before taking myself off, Wednesday afternoon or Thursday evening? Will you drop me a line? 1
Congratulations on your Review. Greavy gave me a copy. It's full ofgood stuff. 2
A bientot n'est-ce pas? 3 Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; NjP. New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl11/1/9. Dating: SB anived in Paris on 26 March; Pilling notes that SB went to Kassel for the Easter holiday on 5 April (A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 7); SB details his travel from Paris via Niirnberg to Kassel in April 1931 (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 55, 1 March 1937). He may have returned to Paris immediately afterwards, for Wambly Bald (1902-1990) mentions SB in his column "La Vie de Boheme (As Lived on the Left Bank)" on 7 April: "Another Irish poet now among us is Samuel Beckett," which suggests that SB was in Paris at that time and possibly into the following week (Chicago Daily Tribune, European Edition [Paris] 7 April 1931: 4; rpt. in Wambly Bald, On the Left Bank, 1929-1933, ed. Benjamin Franklin, V [Athens: Ohio University Press, 1987] 57). SB returned to Dublin for the Trinity Term that began on 20 April 1931.
1 SB anived in Paris on 26 March 1931, the day of a "Seance consacree a James Joyce" (session devoted to James Joyce) organized by Adrienne Monnier at La Maison des Amis desLivres (see Ellmann,JamesJoyce, 636-637, and Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 129-131). The offices of The New Review (1930-1932) were situated in Fontenay aux-Roses, near Paris.
2 GeorgeReaveyhadgivenSBthefirstissueofTheNewReviewOanuary-February 1931), edited by Putnam. Although the second issue and its contents were announced for March-April 1931, it was published as May-June-July 1931. SB had submitted
77
Monday[? 30 March to 13 April 1931}, Putnam
"Return to the Vestty," but the poem was not published until the third issue, August-September-October 1931 (98-99); there was also a mention of Proust in this issue.
3 "Abientotn'est-cepas? "(Tillsoon. amIright? ).
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
29/5/31 Cooldrinagh, Foxrock,
Co. Dublin.
Dear Tom
Very glad to get your letter. Yes I got the box of dolls that
1
me H. C. E. & N. R. F. both autographed. I'm afraid I let too many
days pass before answering to thank him, which I did finally via
Sylvia, rushing in foolishly to say that it was impossible to read
his text without understanding the futility of the translation. I
can't believe that he doesn't see through the translation himself,
its horrible quip atmosphere & vulgarity, necessarily because
you can't translate a motive; I had a Whitsun card from the three
2
God knows when I'll be let out of the room though I feel all right except for a reluctance to sneeze & belch. Poor Ruddy & Pelorson
3
using a phrase out of my book. T. C. D. honoured you with an
ereintement last week. I hear they have done mine this week but
Ihavenotseenit. IamthinkingnowofmyreviewofyourT. S. E. for
4
morning and left them round at the Abbey for L. R. Joyce sent
of them with an address in London.
I have been in bed for the last week with a dry pleurisy, &
have been sharing my work.
Glad to hear that the Aldington is finished & away. Thanks for
SeumasO'S. togetherwiththetranslationofAnabase. Iamwriting the German Comedy in a ragged kind of way, on & off, and would
78
like to show you a page or two when you come up. I'll never believe that the intoxicated dentist was an artist though I don't know anything about him except a few shocking lines here & there. 5
Was ich weiss kann jeder wissen, mein Herz hab['] ich allein! !
Herz! 6 Always the break down & the flabby word & the more than menstrual effusion ofcredulity. IfI could only get you to sleep in Dostoievski's bed somewhere! I'm reading the 'Possedes' in a foul translation. Even so it must be very carelessly & badly written in the Russian, full of cliches & journalese: but the movement, the transitions! 7 No one moves about like Dostoievski. No one ever caught the insanity ofdialogue like he did.
Do you know a decent French life of Marie Stuart? 8 Yes a temperance hotel is like a celibate brothel.
If you arrive after 1 o'clock Monday 8th I could meet
you at station with car. Try and keep an evening for me if
you can.
Love ever
Sam
ALS; I leaf, 4 sides; letterhead; TCD, MS 10402/19. 1 AbbeyTheatre,LennoxRobinson.
2 JamesJoyce, Haveth Childers Everywhere: Fragment.
"Galere" (crew); "petit coeur de neige" (little heart of snow); "fesses" (buttocks).
3 SBreferstoapassageinMcGreevy'sThomasSteamsEliot:"Onecanimaginehow outraged Victor Hugo and Rossetti would be if they knew that forty years after they died there would be writers of genius who found the Lord God a greater source of inspiration than Marion de Lorme or Jenny" (37). Marion de Lonne (1829) by Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is a play about a seventeenth-century French courtesan of that name (c. 1613-1650). "Jenny" may refer to the poem of that name by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (ne Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti 1828-1882).
4 Spurred by a request from Richard Aldington, Rebecca West (1892-1983) men tioned McGreevy's Thomas Steams Eliot in her column in the Daily Telegraph; she com pared McGreevy to St. Augustine, saying that he "makes every sentence with the imprint of his personality, and a very delightful personality it is . . . This book is crammed full of profitable arguments" ("New Books," 23 January 1931: 15). While McGreevy appreciated her fiiendly intention, he had no admiration for West (McGreevy to Prentice, Sunday [25 January 1931], UoR, MS 2444 CW 41/2).
"Tant pis" (too bad).
5 JackYeatshadhis"athome"dayonSaturdays.
6 "Joyce's Gazetteer" may refer to an atlas owned by James Joyce or to one of the books by Irish geographer Patrick Weston Joyce (1827-1914): Irish Names of Places (1913), Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900), Philips' Atlas and Geography of Ireland (1883).
Paul Leon was working with Philippe Soupault, Joyce, and others to continue the translation of "Anna Livia Plurabelle" begun by SB with Alfred Peron; see SB to Soupault, 5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930], n. 1.
7 McGreevy sought commissions for translation from the London publisher Victor Gollancz (1893-1967) and from Charles Prentice, Chatto and Windus, to whom he had proposed to translate one of two monographs by Louis Bertrand (1866-1941): Philippe II a ! 'Escoria! (1929) or Philippe II contre Antonio Perez (1929) (McGreevy to Prentice, Monday [1 December 1930], UoR, MS 2444 CW 41/2; Prentice to McGreevy, 6 February 1931, TCD, MS 8092/29). As McGreevy explained to Prentice after the proposal was turned down: "For me it was only a question of being assured of sufficient money (for work that I should not be ashamed to put my name to) to enable me to go home for a couple of months or three and translate and work on my own at the same time" (Saturday [7 February 1931], UoR, MS 2444 CW 41/2).
Richard Aldington sent money to McGreevy, who, so assisted, chose to go to Florence rather than to stay in Paris (Aldington to Brigit Patmore, 9 February 1931, TxU).
66
24 February 1931, McGreevy
CHAR LES PRENTICE, CHATTO AND WINDUS LONDON
16/2/31 39 TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
Dear Mr Prentice
Thank you for your letter. I am glad to know that the date of
publication is fixed. Yes - ofcourse March 5th suits me perfectly.
1
anxious that the Proust should not prove a washout. I hope sometime to send you something more genuine & direct.
How did the Eliot go? 3 I read it & liked it. Very sincerely yours
Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf. 2 sides; letterhead: <coMMoN RooM. > A ins "39"' TRINITY coLLEGE, D u e LIN ; date stamped received 18-2-31; UoR, MS 2444 CW 24/9.
1 Prenticewroteon12February1931:"Wearepublishing'Proust'onMarch5th;I hope this will be O. K. Your presentation copies will arrive a few days before that date" (UoR, MS 2444 CW Ietterbook 31/576).
2 Prentice assured SB in his reply: "Your Proust,I think, will do very well; Proust himself has not a great many readers, but many people have asked me most curiously about your book, and the subscription sales in the country are promising" (18 February 1931, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 31/647).
3 Inthesameletter,Prenticewrote:"TheEliotisdoingverywell. Idonotmeanthat it is a best-seller; the sales, however, are developing very steadily, and, being in a series, the essay will have a good run to look foIWard to. "
THOMAS McGREEVY FLORENCE
24/2/31 39 TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
67
I did not expect it would be ready so soon.
After your kindness and the trouble you have taken I am
2
24 February 1931, McGreevy
My dear Tom
What kind of pieces are you going to master la-bas. I wonder
1
wont even squelch if stood on. I had a cable from American Bookman asking for a copy - after that bastard Pinker choking me off. I sent it along - without any enthusiasm. 3
This vitaccia is terne beyond all belief. Thursday, Friday &
Sat. we gave 3 plays at the Peacock - La Quema, Souriante Mme.
Beudet & Le Kid (Corneille & Bergson). They might have gone
worse. The inevitable vulgarisation leaves one exhausted & dis
gusted. We had a nice Cartesian Infanta in the Kid, inarticulate &
stupefied, crossing the stage to Ravel's Pavane. Trench was
4
when I hope to go away to Hamburg. That will be about 20th March. Does that mean I will miss you on your way through
5
brats. Cela me fait chier, wear a gown & say 'Yes sir' 'no sir'. When I've posted this I'll go & have a Turkish bath & stupefy my
7
At the R. D. S. yesterday afternoon the music was so tepid that I
was conscious of my neck. Impossible to hear any music here.
Yesterday they played one of Beethoven's last string quartets, a
8
why you are off Italy.
AnyhowyourEliotismakingsomenoise. IknowthatProust
2
delighted.
I scramble through lectures & chafe for the end of term
Dublin? Il ne manquait que cela.
To-night I have to go & eat with the Provost & his hostile
6
nerves in sweaty duration. My person is developing dirty habits.
Mendels[s]ohn Quintette & a Schubert Quintette. I feel that Beethoven's Quartets are a waste of time. His pigheaded refusal to make the best of a rather pettyfogging [for pettifogging] con vention annoys me. He needed a piano or an orchestra. And why do they go on playing that bloody Mendels[s]ohn! Verbalism & not very competent - Leventhal's conversation(. ]9 The Schubert had plenty of nobility and one understood the need of relating
68
his chamber music to his song settings. I don't know any chamber music that works so skilfully. A waste in conception - you know that lamentable pebble in the pond effect - but rigid economy of application. Alas! Why can't I tell you what I feel without getting on a platform.
I went to a doctor because my bitch of a heart was keeping me awake. He smothered my sense of importance with a con temptuous 'Smoke less'. So I try to smoke less.
Ruddy is always polite but drifting to a conveniently remote accessibility. Pelorson is a mystery. Charming sometimes & dreadfully rich in hopeful gestures. He has shown me a lot of interesting verse. I have written nothing since leaving Paris. I am reading 'Journal Intime de Jules Renard' . . . Odd things. 10
Forgive this futile and not even melancholy letter. In 20 years I may be fit to have friends.
If you look up the Esposito say I often think of them (actually true, though rather of myself evolving before them. ) I don't think you would have anything to say to Mario, but am sure you would like Bianca - & the mother. Remember me to the
Aldingtons if you think they would care for that. 11 I'll sent [sic] you a Proust as soon as I get one. I think it is due for March 5.
12
ALS; 3 leaves, 6 sides; letterhead: <cOM MoN RooM> A ins "39"TRINITY coLLEGE, DUBLIN ; TCD, MS 10402/17.
1 McGreevyhaddecidedtojoinRichardAldingtoninFlorenceforadrivingtourin Italy (Aldington to Brigit Patmore, 13 February 1931, TxU); Aldington encouraged McGreevy to choose their itinerary, which included Tuscany, and even plans to go as far south as Brindisi (Aldington to Charles Prentice, 5 March 1931 and 6 March 1931; UoR, MS 2444 CW 48/6). Prentice, who had backed the trip, hoped it would allow McGreevy to work on his novel (12 February 1931, ICSo, Aldington collection 68/6/1). James Joyce wrote to Harriet Weaver on 11 March 1931: "McGreevy has also left Paris. Some person or persons gave him an annuity of 300 £ a year to do original work, and
69
24 February 1931, McGreevy
Won't you keep me au courant. Love ever
Sam
24 February 1931, McGreevy
he has gone to Ireland via Italy" Uoyce, Letters of James Joyce, I, 303). "La-bas" (down there).
2 Besides the review by Rebecca West, McGreevy's Thomas Stearns Eliot had been announced by Chatto and Windus in an advertisement that mentioned it as "a short but pointed and distinguished study of a writer who has for some years been regarded by intelligent people as of paramount influence in modern letters" (Times Literary Supplement 22 January 1931: 54); it had been reviewed by H. F. in "T. S. Eliot," Time and Tide (12. 617 February 1931] 165).
3 SewardCollins(1899-1952),EditorofTheBookman:AReviewofBooksandLife(New York, 1895 - March 1933), cabled SB on 17 February 1931: "cou LD I s EE co PY you R FORTHCOMING STUDY MARCEL PROUST FOR POSSIBLE PUBLICATION IN AMERICAN BOOKMAN ADDRESS THREE EIGHTY SIX FOURTH AVENUE NEw Yo RK" (CtY. YCAL MSS 12, Series I. 2/42). SB did not hear from The Bookman until August 1933 (when it had become The American Review): "When it came we had rather an embarrassment ofriches, so far as articles on Proust were concerned. Mr. Collins liked it, however, and hoped to use it, but now feels that he cannot afford the space" (Dorothea Brande [1893-1948}, Associate Editor of The American Review, to SB, 7 August 1933, CtY, YCAL, MSS 12, Series I, 2/42).
Pinker had not pursued publication in America.
4 "Vitaccia" (It. , miserable life, wretched existence); "terne" (dull, colorless).
SB wrote "<Catie]> Peacock. "
The Modern Languages Society production of a French play at the Peacock Theatre
was an annual event at Trinity College Dublin; Georges Pelorson was in charge of the program of three plays. A comedy in Spanish, La Quema (1922), by the brothers Serafin (1871-1938) and Joaquin Alvarez Quintero (1873-1944), was directed by Walter Starkie (1894-1976), Professor of Spanish and Italian at Trinity College Dublin. SB suggested La Souriante Mme. Beudet (1921; The Smiling Mrs. Beudet), by Denys Amie! (ne Guillaume Roche. 1884-1977) and Andre Obey (1892-1975). Le Kid, a burlesque ofLe Cid (1637; The Cid) by Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), was devised by Pelorson with advice from SB and influenced by Henri Bergson (for discussion: Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 125-128; Dougald McMillan and Martha Fehsenfeld, Beckett in the Theatre: The Author as Practical Playwright and Director, From "Waiting for Godot" to "Krapp's Last Tape" ! London: John Calder; New York: Riverrun Press, 1988] 17-23).
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), Pavane pour une infante dejimte, for piano (1889; Pavane for a Dead Princess). SB generally refers to this piece as the "Infanta. "
Wilbraham Fitzjohn Trench (1873-1939), Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin.
5 McGreevyplannedtopassthroughDublinonhiswaytoTarbert,Co. Kerry,inthe spring. "II ne manquait que cela. " (That's the last straw. )
6 EdwardJohnGwynn(1868-1941). aneminentscholarofOldIrish,wasProvostof Trinity College Dublin (1927-1937).
"Cela me fait chier" (It really gets me down, literally, makes me shit).
7 At this time, Trinity College Dublin did not have bathing facilities; the Turkish
bath on Lincoln Place and another on Leinster Street were the two nearest to TCD.
8 The Royal Dublin Society's chamber music concert on 23 February 1931 was played by the Unity String Quartet. with the addition of a second viola and cello. The
70
program included the String Quartet in E-flat major, op. 127 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827); an unspecified Mendelssohn String Quintet (either no. 1 in A major, op. 18, or no. 2 in B-flat major, op. 87); the String Quintet in C, D 956 by Franz Schubert (1797-1828); Souvenir de Florence, String Sextet in D major, op. 70 by Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893); and the String Quartet in D major, op. 33 by Italian-born Dublin composer, Michele Esposito (1855-1929).
9 AbrahamJacobLeventhal•(knownasCon,1896-1979).
10 SBreadfromthefour-volume,posthumouslypublishedLeJournal,1887-1910of French writer Jules Renard (1864-1910) (Paris, F. Bemouard, 1927). See SB's notes taken from this edition in Pilling, ed. , Beckett's Dream Notebook, 30-34 (BIF, UoR, MS 5000).
11 The family of Michele Esposito included his wife Natalia (nee Klebnikoff, 1857-1944), their daughters Bianca Esposito (1879-1961), Vera Dockrell (nee Esposito, 1883-1967). and Nina Porcelli (nee Esposito, 1890-1970), and son, Mario Esposito (1887-1975) (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 84; J. Bowyer Bell, "Waiting for Mario: The Espositos, Joyce, and Beckett," Eire-Ireland 30. 2 [1995] 7-26; Michael M. Gorman. "Mario Esposito (1887-1975) and the Study of the Latin Literature of Medieval Ireland" in Mario Esposito, Studies in Hiberno-Latin Literature, ed. Michael M. Gorman. Variorum Collected Studies Series [Aldershot, UK: AshgateJVariorum, 2006] 300-309). SB took private Italian classes with Bianca Esposito at a school of languages and music at 21 Ely Place, Dublin; she "nurtured his love for Dante" (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 67-68, 630). SB had visited Italy in the late spring through the summer of 1927 to prepare for his final examinations in Italian and had stayed some time in Florence where the Espositos then lived (NhD: Lawrence Harvey, Interviews with SB. 92; Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 83-84).
12 "Aucourant"(uptodate).
THOMAS McGREEVY FLORENCE
11/3/31 39 T. C. D. [Dublin]
My dear Tom
A thousand thanks for all you say about my Proust. You
would have had your copy before now were it not for what Charlus would call an unhappy 'enchainement de circonstan ces'. My parcel was sent to Foxrock & I only got it a couple of days ago. And I have been paralysed with a most atrocious cold that shackled me to the fire. The wind for 3 days was terrifying, Siberian vitriol, and I got so nervous listening to it hoisting itself
71
11 March 1931, McGreevy
11 March 1931, McGreevy
to the one note behind my bedroom that I got ready to retreat to
the anthracite bosom of my family. Then it dropped and I felt as
1
After reading your appreciation of that essay I know that it is
worth more than I thought. I read the book through quickly and
really wondered what I was talking about. It seemed like pale grey
sandpaper, stab stab stab without any enchantment. It's too
abstract because my head comes breaking every now & then
through the epidermis for a breath of merely verbal enthusiasm.
It has the plausibility of a pattern, a kind of flat syllogistic drift,
like the fan of the long division sum in 'Portrait of the Artist': at its
best a distorted steam-rolled equivalent of some aspect or con
2
you, because I have the good-fortune to have your affection. I
mean you see your intuition as a formula. That is the only stim
ulus that I can find for your pleasure. As a merely critical exten
sion, what could be more blafard, gritty like the Civic Guard's
anus. 3 No sinewy membrane between it & its official motive - the
only motive that the most easy going public will give me any
credit for - Proust. I feel it tied somehow on to Proust, on to his
tail board, with odds & ends of words, like bundles of grass(,] jack
in the boxing under a kite. Not that I care. I don't want to be a
professor (it[']s almost a pleasure to contemplate the mess of this
job). And what the hell do I care for the sneers of the Faguets & the
Lansons & the Gwynns & the Brunetieres and all the Sorbonagres
when you write pleased with even the mutilated statement of
an identification & a participation effected a summer's day of
fathoms deeper than the little cormorant plunge of voracious
4
though I had had a tooth out after long fumigations.
fusionofaspectsofmyself. Thatiswhatyousee&whatpleases
curiosity. Iwon'tforgetyourletter. Ireaditontherailings,just as the sun took it into its head to bare its bottom over censored Dublin. - Douceurs. 5
72
11 March 1931, McGreevy
Seumas O'Sullivan asked me to review your Eliot for his
next number - after the one that is just coming out. I would
like to. I may?
He sent me Eliot's translation of Anabase for
review. I don't like Anabase - I think it[']s bad Claude! , with
abominable colour. The translation is very uneven. Good when
6
I'll come back to him. But I can't talk about Rimbaud, though I
had to try & explain the mystery to my foul Senior Sophisters. I
told them about the eye suicide - pour des visions - you remem
7
'Noire bise, averse glapissante Fleuve noir et maisons closes'.
So I repeated. Titter. I, in my innocence, couldn't understand, and
wondered could 'maisons closes' have tickled their repressions.
I told Pelorson who kindly explained that the joke resided in
8
Pelorson s'eloigne, toujours tres pris, tres melancolique, mal
aux yeux, au coeur, aux bronches, hallucinations, reves, seuil de
9
Berlin. He had a beautiful phrase: 'le diamant du pessimisme'.
I long to be away and ofcourse can't bear the idea ofgoing & can't understand why Hamburg, where it won't be warm & where I will be probably frightened. That's the latest cardiac
feather. Fear - followed by no genitive.
O'Sullivan said Alan was in Dublin. Pas vu. Stella said that
Cissie was asking for me & wishing to see me. Tonic or balm? 11 God bless now. Keep me in the current. And again - all that
he drops the text altogether. I've been reading nothing but Rimbaud - tired out by Renard. Oh a good name - foxy foxy.
ber. (Poetesde7ans). Guffaw. AstheyguffawedwhenIquoted:
the 'pissante' of 'glapissante'. Oh the bitches & the stallions.
lafolie&theusual. AlwaysaloneexceptwhenheorFrankcomes in. Ruddy s'efface. Had a rather terrible letter from Beaufret from
10
is good.
Sam
73
11 March 1931, McGreevy
Kindest regards to the Aldingtons.
12 ALS; 2 leaves, 7 sides; TCD, MS 10402/18.
1 In Proust's Le Cote de Guennantes M. de Charlus says: "'Etje ne parle pas seulement des evenements accomplis, mais de l'enchainement de circonstances"' ('"And I do not speak only of events that have already occurred, but of the chain of circum stances'"); the narrator comments: "une des expressions favorites de M. de Charlus" (a favourite expression of M. de Charlus's) (Le Cote de Guennantes in A la recherche du temps perdu, II, ed. Jean-Yves Tadie, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1987-1989] 583; The Guennantes Way, in In Search of Lost Time, III, tr. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright [New York: Modern Library, 1992-1993] 389).
SB's copies of Proust had been sent to him at his family home rather than to 39 Trinity College, Dublin.
From 6 to 8 March 1931 Dublin experienced easterly winds that changed to north easterly winds on 9 March.
2 SeeJamesJoyce'sAPortraitoftheArtistasaYoungMan,ed. ChesterG. Anderson (New York: Viking Press, 1964) 102-103:
The equation on the page of his scribbler began to spread out a widening tail, eyed and starred like a peacock's; and, when the eyes and stars of its indices had been eliminated, began slowly to fold itself together again . . .
It was his own soul going forth to experience, unfolding itself sin by sin, spreading abroad the balefire of its burning stars and folding back upon itself, fading slowly, quenching its own lights and fires.
3 "Blafard"(wan).
The Civic Guard was formed in August 1922, in preparation for the transfer of political power from the British to the Provisional Irish Government.
4 SB dubs as "Sorbonagres" a group of influential academic figures who were associated with the Ecole Normale Superieure, the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and Trinity College Dublin. The term was coined by Frarn;ois Rabelais (? 1494-71553) in Gargantua et Pantagruel (1532-1533).
Emile Faguet (1847-1916), Professor of French Poetry at the Sorbonne, defended the classical ideal and interpreted literary history with an evolutionary model (Maftres et eleves, celebrites et savants: ! 'Ecole Nonnale Superieure, 1794-1994 [Paris: Archives Nationales, 1994] 158): his five-volume Etudes litteraires (1885-1891) surveyed sixteenth- to early twentieth-century literature.
Gustave Lanson (1857-1934), Professor at the Sorbonne from 1897 to 1900, and Directeur, Ecole Normale Superieure, from 1902 to 1927. Among his writings are Histoire de la litterature fran�aise (1894) and Manuel bibliographique de la litterature fran�aise moderne, depuis 1500jusqu'a nosjours (1909-1912, 4 vols. ).
Edward John Gwynn, Provost of Trinity College Dublin (see 24 February 1931, n. 6).
Ferdinand Brunetiere (1849-1906), Professor of French Literature at the Ecole Normale Superieure from 1886 to 1904, advocated that art should have a moral purpose and that literature was governed by evolution; he edited the Revue des Deux
74
No reply from Bookman.
Mandes from 1893 to 1906, and wrote, among other works, Histoire et litterature {1884-1886), L'Evolution des genres dans l'histoire de la litterature (1890), L'Evolution de la poesie lyrique au dix-neuvieme siecle (1894), Manuel de l'histoire de la litterature fran�aise (1897). and L'Art et la morale (1898).
5 TheNassauStreetboundaryofTrinityCollegeDublinwascalled"therailings. " "Douceurs" (soft sweetness).
6 SBdidnotwriteareviewofMcGreevy'sThomasStearnsEliotforDublinMagazine, nor one ofT. S. Eliot's translation ofAnabase, a poem by St. -John Perse (ne Alexis Saint Leger, 1887-1975) which was published as Anabasis by Faber and Faber in 1930. Nonetheless, SB had closely read Eliot's translation which presents the French and English texts on facing pages.
SB compares the poem to the work ofPaul Claude! (1868-1955), a prominent figure in the French Catholic literary renaissance ofthe early twentieth century.
7 JulesRenard,LeJournal;"renard"(fox).
A Senior Sophister is in the fourth and final year ofstudy for an undergraduate
degree at Trinity College Dublin.
In 1871, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) wrote "Les Poetes de sept ans" ("Seven
Year-Old Poets"); the poem follows Rimbaud's two "Les Lettres du voyant" ("The Letters ofthe Seer") which set forth his program to explore poetic vision through a deliberate derangement ofhis senses. In this poem, the image ofa child who "dans ses yeux fermes voyait des points" (shut his eyes to see spots) leads to what SB calls the "eye suicide," the image ofa child deliberately grinding his fists into his eyes: "Et pour des visions ecrasant son oeil dame" (Squeezing his dazzled eyes to make visions come) (Arthur Rimbaud, Oeuvres completes, ed. Antoine Adam, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1972) 43-44; Arthur Rimbaud, Complete Works, tr. Paul Schmidt [New York: Harper and Row, 1975) 77-78).
8 JulesLaforgue,"XII,"DemiersVers:"Noirebise,averseglapissante/Etfleuvenoir, et maisons closes" (Black wind, downpour yelping, / Black river, and houses closed), (Poesies completes, II, ed. Pascal Pia [Paris: Gallimard, 1979) 215; Poems of]ules Laforgue, tr. Patricia Terry [Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1958) 183).
"Maisons closes" (brothels); "pissante" (pissing); "glapissante" (yelping). The guffaw ing students found "pissante" irresistible.
9 "Pelorson s'eloigne, toujours tres pris, tres melancolique, ma! aux yeux, au coeur, aux bronches. hallucinations. reves. seuil de la folie" (Pelorson is drifting away, always very busy, very melancholic, eye trouble, heart trouble, bronchial trou ble, hallucinations, dreams, edge ofmadness).
10 "S'efface"(keepsoutoftheway).
Jean Beaufret was in Germany studying the work ofMartin Heidegger {1889-1976); the phrase "'le diamant du pessimisme'" (the diamond ofpessimism) appears in a letter from him to SB.
11 SeumasO'Sullivan,speakingofAlanDuncan.
"Pas vu" (not seen).
Estella Solomons was a close friend ofSB's paternal aunt Cissie Beckett Sinclair.
12 McGreevy is in Italy with Richard Aldington and Brigit Patmore (nee Morrison-Scott, 1882-1965), Aldington's companion from 1928 to 1936.
75
11 March 1931, McGreevy
11 March 1931, McGreevy
SB wrote to Charles Prentice on 18 February 1931: "Many thanks for forwarding a promising communication from the editor ofthe American Bookman. I have sent him the Proust" (UoR, MS 2444 CW 24/9).
CHARLES PRENTICE, CHATTO AND WINDUS LONDON
13/3/31 39 Trinity College, Dublin.
Dear Mr Prentice
Glad to hear that Proust has got off with so many of the
Could I have another half dozen? I am enclosing cheque for 13/-. Is 1/- enough for postage?
Very sincerely yours Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; letterhead: <cOMMON ROOM, > A ins "39" TRIN ITY COLLEGE, o u BL, N ; date stamped received 16-3-31; UoR, MS 2444 CW 24/9. In another hand, figures to the left of the signature, related to the cost of six additional copies (see Prentice to SB, 16 March 1931: "The six copies of'Proust' will be sent to you today, and the balance of your cheque returned. I do not know yet how the sum will work out, but you are of course charged at trade terms, i. e. , at 1/4d. instead of 2/- a copy" [UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 31/9851).
1 PrenticewrotetoSBon12March1931:"Thebookhasmadeaverydecentstart. It was published last Thursday, and we have already sold 639 copies. When the reviews begin to appear, I hope there will be more exciting news to report" (UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 31/948). Rebecca West's review in the Daily Telegraph calls Proust "an excel lent work. for Mr. Beckett is a very brilliant young man," but warns that "his meta physics and his habit ofallusiveness" pose an intellectual challenge (6 March 1931: 18).
2 McGreevy's letter to SB has not been found, but SB's appreciation of his warm comments about Proust is evident in his reply of11 March 1931, above.
3 Prentice mentioned receiving a note from McGreevy about the cover of Proust: "Tom tells me I have done wrong in giving you a brown Dolphin. It should, he says,
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12
few. Tomwrotemeamostcharmingletteraboutthebook. It is very good ofhim to think that I am worth labelling with a flag. I had not noticed whether the Dolphin was green or brown. 3
Monday[? 30 March to 13 April 1931}, Putnam
have been green; clearly I have been trying to steal you from Ireland. Will you please forgive? " (Prentice to SB, 12 March 1931, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 31/948).
SAMUEL PUTNAM, THE NEW REVIEW PAR I S
Monday[? 30 March to 13 April 1931]
Hotel Corneille Rue Corneille Paris 6e
Dear Putnam
Do you ever come up to town? I'd like very much to see you
before taking myself off, Wednesday afternoon or Thursday evening? Will you drop me a line? 1
Congratulations on your Review. Greavy gave me a copy. It's full ofgood stuff. 2
A bientot n'est-ce pas? 3 Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; NjP. New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl11/1/9. Dating: SB anived in Paris on 26 March; Pilling notes that SB went to Kassel for the Easter holiday on 5 April (A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 7); SB details his travel from Paris via Niirnberg to Kassel in April 1931 (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 55, 1 March 1937). He may have returned to Paris immediately afterwards, for Wambly Bald (1902-1990) mentions SB in his column "La Vie de Boheme (As Lived on the Left Bank)" on 7 April: "Another Irish poet now among us is Samuel Beckett," which suggests that SB was in Paris at that time and possibly into the following week (Chicago Daily Tribune, European Edition [Paris] 7 April 1931: 4; rpt. in Wambly Bald, On the Left Bank, 1929-1933, ed. Benjamin Franklin, V [Athens: Ohio University Press, 1987] 57). SB returned to Dublin for the Trinity Term that began on 20 April 1931.
1 SB anived in Paris on 26 March 1931, the day of a "Seance consacree a James Joyce" (session devoted to James Joyce) organized by Adrienne Monnier at La Maison des Amis desLivres (see Ellmann,JamesJoyce, 636-637, and Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 129-131). The offices of The New Review (1930-1932) were situated in Fontenay aux-Roses, near Paris.
2 GeorgeReaveyhadgivenSBthefirstissueofTheNewReviewOanuary-February 1931), edited by Putnam. Although the second issue and its contents were announced for March-April 1931, it was published as May-June-July 1931. SB had submitted
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Monday[? 30 March to 13 April 1931}, Putnam
"Return to the Vestty," but the poem was not published until the third issue, August-September-October 1931 (98-99); there was also a mention of Proust in this issue.
3 "Abientotn'est-cepas? "(Tillsoon. amIright? ).
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
29/5/31 Cooldrinagh, Foxrock,
Co. Dublin.
Dear Tom
Very glad to get your letter. Yes I got the box of dolls that
1
me H. C. E. & N. R. F. both autographed. I'm afraid I let too many
days pass before answering to thank him, which I did finally via
Sylvia, rushing in foolishly to say that it was impossible to read
his text without understanding the futility of the translation. I
can't believe that he doesn't see through the translation himself,
its horrible quip atmosphere & vulgarity, necessarily because
you can't translate a motive; I had a Whitsun card from the three
2
God knows when I'll be let out of the room though I feel all right except for a reluctance to sneeze & belch. Poor Ruddy & Pelorson
3
using a phrase out of my book. T. C. D. honoured you with an
ereintement last week. I hear they have done mine this week but
Ihavenotseenit. IamthinkingnowofmyreviewofyourT. S. E. for
4
morning and left them round at the Abbey for L. R. Joyce sent
of them with an address in London.
I have been in bed for the last week with a dry pleurisy, &
have been sharing my work.
Glad to hear that the Aldington is finished & away. Thanks for
SeumasO'S. togetherwiththetranslationofAnabase. Iamwriting the German Comedy in a ragged kind of way, on & off, and would
78
like to show you a page or two when you come up. I'll never believe that the intoxicated dentist was an artist though I don't know anything about him except a few shocking lines here & there. 5
Was ich weiss kann jeder wissen, mein Herz hab['] ich allein! !
Herz! 6 Always the break down & the flabby word & the more than menstrual effusion ofcredulity. IfI could only get you to sleep in Dostoievski's bed somewhere! I'm reading the 'Possedes' in a foul translation. Even so it must be very carelessly & badly written in the Russian, full of cliches & journalese: but the movement, the transitions! 7 No one moves about like Dostoievski. No one ever caught the insanity ofdialogue like he did.
Do you know a decent French life of Marie Stuart? 8 Yes a temperance hotel is like a celibate brothel.
If you arrive after 1 o'clock Monday 8th I could meet
you at station with car. Try and keep an evening for me if
you can.
Love ever
Sam
ALS; I leaf, 4 sides; letterhead; TCD, MS 10402/19. 1 AbbeyTheatre,LennoxRobinson.
2 JamesJoyce, Haveth Childers Everywhere: Fragment.
