∎ PDF What There Is to Say We Have Said The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell Suzanne Marrs 9780547376493 Books

What There Is to Say We Have Said The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell Suzanne Marrs 9780547376493 Books

Download As PDF : What There Is to Say We Have Said The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell Suzanne Marrs 9780547376493 Books

What There Is to Say We Have Said The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell Suzanne Marrs 9780547376493 Books

At first I found the letters disappointing but as time went on and the friendship flourished things got more interesting--more references to Maxwell's editorial help for Welty, more insight into their lives as writers. Their sentences are sometimes difficult to follow--they are obviously writing with no notion of publication. But this makes the letters more real. All in all a fine book a writer will want to keep forever. Nell Abbott


Tags : What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell [Suzanne Marrs] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>For over fifty years, Eudora Welty and William Maxwell, two of our most admired writers, penned letters to each other. They shared their worries about work and family,Suzanne Marrs,What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell,Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,0547376499,American authors;Correspondence.,Authors, American;20th century;Correspondence.,1908-2000,1909-2001,20TH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE,20th century,Authors, American,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY Literary Figures,Biography & Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography,Correspondence,Eudora Welty;William Maxwell;correspondence;letters;friendship;literary icons;editor;writer;relationship;New Yorker;artists;nonfiction,GENERAL,General Adult,LITERARY COLLECTIONS Letters,Letters,Letters & Correspondence,Literary,Literature - Classics Criticism,MAXWELL, WILLIAM - PROSE & CRITICISM,Maxwell, William,,Non-Fiction,United States,WELTY, EUDORA - PROSE & CRITICISM,Welty, Eudora,

What There Is to Say We Have Said The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell Suzanne Marrs 9780547376493 Books Reviews

Eudora Welty achieved classic status in the Fifties and has kept it. William Maxwell -- novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and legendary New Yorker editor -- was always a "writer's writer," although he has a volume in the Library of America. Maxwell fell in love with Welty's writing early, when it mattered. He lobbied hard for her inclusion in The New Yorker, despite the aversion of the editor, Harold Ross, for her work. His persistence paid off. The magazine published Welty's Ponder Heart and just about everything else she sent them from then on.

In the process of correspondence and Maxwell's close editing of Welty's writing for the magazine, they became friends. When Welty visited New York, they met and fell further into friendship. They came to consider one another family.

I enjoy reading letters, but only from people who know how to write them. No worries here. Some correspondences between literary folk are conscious literary productions. The writers know that not only just the addressee, but posterity will be reading them as well. Although such letters exist in the Welty-Maxwell collection, they are fairly rare and were produced for specific circumstances. For example, Maxwell's contribution to a Welty Festschrift took the form of a letter. Generally, however, this is not the case. These are two friends essentially keeping in touch. The letters may lack the finish of their stories and essays, but that doesn't deny their literary qualities. Two wonderful writers just can't help themselves, and there's a lot of play between them. They can't break the habit of entertaining their listeners, readers, and friends.

The letters tend to reflect (no big surprise) the writers' habits as writers. Eudora Welty comes up with linguistic flourishes, as in

The train ride here, down the hypotenuse to Texas,
is utter peace. When you leave the city goes away
immediately and it's mountains, or valleys with
beautifully plowed fields and yellow barns till dark.

That wonderfully original "hypotenuse," for one thing, and the habitual, constant notice characterize Welty's stories as well.

Though he's a master describer, Maxwell's prose is more direct and aims at moral penetration -- again, just like his stories. This passage will suffice

I lost, in a manner of speaking, Judith Raskin and
Robert Fitzgerald last year. When I was a young man
one of my mother's friends said to me, "I have never
become reconciled to her death." I thought, how strange.
It doesn't seem so now. One doesn't want to become
reconciled. When you come I will play Judith's recording
of the Pergolesi Stabat Mater. They both go right on
being part of my life. From our living room windows you
can look into the Raskins' apartment, which used always
to be lighted up and now isn't ever. [Her husband] Ray
cannot bear to be home. Since the beginning of the world
this has been going on, hasn't it.

The two talk of family -- mainly Maxwell's wife and children and Welty's mother and nieces -- gardening, particularly roses (cuttings of which they send to one another), literary friends, some politics in passing, movies, museum shows, books, food, and plays. They encourage one another over rough spots in the progress of their writing. Indeed, neither says one negative word to the other. It's pure encouragement.

Maxwell and Welty, born only a year apart and growing up in small towns, immediately recognized that they had large portions of their lives in common, that they knew each other instantly. This correspondence records the deepening of an immediate friendship.

Welty scholar Suzanne Marrs has provided linking commentary -- just enough -- and a wonderfully clear set of endnotes. If I have any quibble, it's that I wish the endnotes section had page ranges at the top of each page.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading "What There Is to Say We Have Said". Welty and Maxwell were gifted writers. Just like the champagne Bill loved, their intellects were twice fermented. First with their genius and then with their discipline, creating the perfect interplay between reality and the ethereal.

These letters reveal what normal lives both writers lived. One of the funniest illustrations of this comes when Bill mentioned that "Brookie has picked up her room." That he underlined this comment about his daughter's accomplishment needs no explanation.

As I read "What There Is to Say", time seemed to slow down for me. Welty and Maxwell seemed to relish every moment, rather than making everything rushed and urgent. It was as if they took the minutes of each day into the palms of their hands, touching them, slowly inspecting and memorizing them from every possible angle, before reluctantly releasing them. This was demonstrated most clearly in Bill's recount of an evening with Isak Dinesen.

Maxwell captured every aspect of Dinesen's appearance and soul as he perceived her. He spoke of his conversation with her and how he "worshipped her all through dinner". Dinesen came alive for me. The moment is frozen in time because he did not rush through it or focus on himself. He honed in on Dinesen and wrote of the beauty and elegance of every movement and inflection. It was as if he was personally slowing time down for the enjoyment of the moment that would soon pass by. Maybe in this way writing is like parenting, if you want to be good at it you cannot be selfish. You have to be willing to spend time focusing on others.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves Welty, Maxwell, and their contemporaries. It is a superb peek into the normal and remarkable lives of these two incredible authors.

Note The back cover of the book states that Welty was a loner. I tend to disagree. Welty was not a social butterfly, but she did not push the world away either. Because she cared for her mother for most of her adult life, she selectively embraced people. Her social mobility was limited. Her circumstances required that she be very particular about the people she allowed into her inner circle.
It might help if I'd actually read some Eudora Welty or William Maxwell, but shouldn't this book inspire me to do so? So far it hasn't. Maybe I'm betraying my intellectual limitations here, but I got about halfway through this and became tired of so much talk about buying and growing roses and all the mutual congratulations for another publishing triumph that I'm seriously thinking of putting this book down permanently and not finishing it.
They just talk about flowers. He's fascinated by her, she deals with this love -- with respect. A little bit glacial. Their conversation rarely delves into literature.
The book arrived in good condition and I am completely satisfied with all aspects of the purchase. All's well that ends well!
An excellent book. Two marvelous writers.
At first I found the letters disappointing but as time went on and the friendship flourished things got more interesting--more references to Maxwell's editorial help for Welty, more insight into their lives as writers. Their sentences are sometimes difficult to follow--they are obviously writing with no notion of publication. But this makes the letters more real. All in all a fine book a writer will want to keep forever. Nell Abbott