the neal pollack anthology of american literature
From the Chronology:
DATE AUTHOR'S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT HISTORICAL EVENTS 1936 Begins fourth grade. Publishes essay, "Does Faulkner Write Too Much?" in _American Mercury_. Faulkner: _Absalom, Absalom!_
Nabokov: _Despair_.Spanish Civil War begins. (...) 1953 _Salinger Alone_; _Europe: The Forgotten Continent_. Marries the novelist Mary McCarthy. Divorces the actress Mary McCarthy. Nabokov: _Lolita_. Josef Stalin dies. 1957 Publishes biography of Stalin. Plots with Nabokov to kill Pasternak. Hangs out with the Beats. Spends time in Cuba, with Castro. Pasternak: _Doctor Shivago_. Ginsberg: _Howl (or The Ballad of Pollack)_, America seethes with paranoia.
From "Interlude: The Pollack-Wilson Letters.":...Myself, I am trying to put pen to paper, but when your work looms before me like a Hydra of prose, I am cowed. I hope your testimony before HUAC is a sucessful one. All my love to Vera-Ellen.
Regards,
BunnyDecember 6, 1956
New York CityDearest Bunny,
Well, Europe: The Forgotten Continent has been published in the States, despite the efforts of the lawyers to keep it safe from our impressionable youth. Already, the moralistic firestorm has begun, and the calls for a public burning emanate from the more hayseed corners of this disturbed republic. In that vein, I reread your Memoirs of Hecate County last night, and, I must be honest, fell asleep around page 15...
- Visit Neal Pollack's site.
- "Interlude: The Pollack-Wilson Letters" is a parody of this exchange, natch. (Not so natch? Then this explanation might help.)
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