I don’t know when if ever I will receive proofs. The editor-in-chief at Holt has moved to Simon & Shuster. He was directly responsible for my book. I hope that the change will not affect the production schedule. It could hardly make it any slower. At the moment I have no plans for returning to New York, so I am trying to get invited to a conference about a year from now. I hate conferences, but they seem to provide pretexts for going almost anywhere. Somehow I do not think that scholarship is so unlike writing of other kinds; it is best done by oneself.

  I have had some pleasant exchanges of letters with Bill Weaver, who very kindly sent me a fine book of essays by himself and others on Verdi. I have also had a letter from Elizabeth Harrower which I have been slow to answer. I do hope that you are able to invite her to New York. In the same way that I found my trip to Australia stimulating I think that she would enjoy New York, especially with you to introduce her to interesting people.

  I can’t remember whether or not I told you, but I have become a “guest editor” of the Asahi Shimbun, the leading Japanese newspaper.7 It was most unexpected, and I still do not really know what they hoped for from me, but I have been moved by the honor. There is a danger of diverting my energies in so many directions that I lose sight of my main task, finishing my history of Japanese literature, but it is hard to decline when offered that kind of honor.

  I hope that the weather is better in Italy. The rain you have missed is all here. It has rained every single day of September. We are up to typhoon #19 and, to tell the truth, I’m rather bored with typhoons now. If only I could think of some way of sending you one . . .

  All my best to you and Francis.

  Yours, Donald

  Capri, October 28, 1982

  Dear Donald—

  Many many thanks for your most welcome letter. [. . .] The account of your experiences with copy editing was just about unbearable to both of us. That humourless form of feminism, embodied in the “chairperson” mentality, in particular drives me bonkers. It is another bureaucratic tyranny forced on us in the name of tolerance and equity—ie in the name of reasonableness, one is supposed to accept un-reason. The rest of your sufferings make the head spin. It is inconceivable that an unqualified person should presume to alter meanings in a work of scholarship of this kind and quality. [. . .]

  How well you put it, that scholarship is not so unlike writing of other kinds. Indeed—but when it is done well, as with writing of other kinds also. Something appalling has happened with scholarship in America—not only the extremes of the literary shambles in academe, but for instance art history, the “social sciences” etc. Thank God we still know many exemplary scholars and devoted teachers; but they are often embattled within the scholarly context. A legendary figure here at Naples, the historian Roberto Pane—a man now probably over eighty, impassioned, quarrelsome, fearless, imperious, vain, immensely knowledgeable, witty, polymathic, tireless . . . —was inveighing the other day to us against some immense work on Bernini produced by a Princeton prof called Levin (I think), which apparently reproduces every last detail of every minute evidence of Bernini’s life without distinction, etc. Pane, leaping from his chair with outrage, burst out against this author’s insensibility towards historical experience: “He mentions the Counter-Reformation in passing—in passing!—as if it were no more than a road accident. To us—who have it still (drawing fingers down his arm) on our very skin!” (“La Contriforma!—che noi abbiamo sempre sulla pelle!”)

  Bravo for the guest editorship of the Asahi Shimbun. Something unimaginable to me, this degree of mastery of another language and such a difficult one, such a complex series of nuances. The same Roberto Pane mentioned above is editor of “Napoli Nobilissima”—a deservedly revered series of monographs published by scholars on matters touching the history of Naples; from time to time (every twenty years or so) these are bound into volumes. This has been going on for about a century. He has asked me to contribute: an honour undeserved and never hoped. I have an (unlearned) idea, on certain experiences of poets at Naples (not the well-covered ground of Goethe, etc). But even for a brief article of few pages, am daunted by the quality of written Italian required. Apart from the possibility of a mistake in grammar or in subtlety of usage, there is a question of tone and originality of language that determines me. Anyway I can’t do it at present. When I get to it, shall write it in English, translate it, and see how I feel. These matters of course don’t bother me when I’m writing letters or some casual document in Italian—but a literary work shld have style . . .

  A propos—I have reread all the Kawabata novels I can find in translation, these past weeks and months. What a master. All the novels I have are translated by Seidensticker except one (“Beauty and Sadness”, trans. by Hibbett). I find the translation—rather, the English—often disturbing; even vulgar. Can see it must be immensely difficult. The trouble is with the translator’s lack of refinement in his own tongue. I wonder what you think. “The Master of Go” is the best of the translations; how appallingly hard that must have been to translate. As far as I can tell—and forgive such an ignorant judgement—it seems Kawabata’s masterpiece. A wonderful book, enviable. I would have loved to have written it.

  Yes, we do hope 1983 will bring Elizabeth to New York. What a good idea, that it might bring forth her writing gift. I’m going to tell her that you proposed that. She exists as something luminous in my mind; some suggestion of a great soul in my consciousness.

  Such beauty here—never ending. Last week we spent a day at Ninfa, south of Rome. An incredible place, a dream. Shall tell you when we meet. As to “being bored with typhoons”—after a burning, rainless summer, we had an onslaught of equinoctial tempests; and I thought of your typhoon observation. However, many glorious days, including today . . . With much affection—Shirley

  [. . .] PS: Thank you for your words about Ivan. We will talk more of this, perhaps. For me, he is an exemplary instance of Empson’s line, “all losses haunt us”—meaning, or unresolved events. I never really believe in his death.

  New York, November 7, 1982

  Dear Donald—

  [. . .] The day after my return we did an adventurous thing for New Yorker stick in the muds—hired a car and went to the Botanic Garden at the Bronx to see a beautiful display of chrysanthemums in the conservatory there, prepared for the past eighteen months by a Japanese chrysanthemum expert—I feel the inadequacy of that designation, but know no western term for this poetic vocation. Of course these flowers ceased to be chrysanthemums in our sense. Odd for me—having just come from the Italian Day of the Dead: Tutti Santi is a tremendous day in Italy, and remains a focus on ancestor worship in a manner often moving and beautiful. Millions of chrysanthemums are taken to cemeteries throughout Italy, people often travelling long distances to visit graves. (Profanely I may add that it is a fine opportunity to get into churches often closed at other times, and to see pictures one otherwise has to get special permission for. In Rome last Monday—the day of the holiday—I profited somewhat from that, and in the course of it heard at least one quite delightful sermon. A day of splendid warm weather, at noon the entire populace of Rome appeared in the streets well dressed from church and a sort of decorous festival took place—rather like Easter Sunday—with large family lunches in restaurants outdoors etc. Even allowing for advantages of climate and temperament, a marked contrast with, say, an English public holiday in a large city . . .)

  However, I intended to say that a present of a bunch or plant of chrysanthemums in Italy is not well regarded: tantamount to saying, Drop Dead. The flower has that rather sacred function of remembering the dead, and can’t be thought of as cheering up a living-room.

  [. . .]

  Please, when you have a moment, let us know about yr expected return to NYC . . . With much affection from us both—Shirley.

  Tokyo, December 7, 1982

  Dear Shirley,

  Having just typed the date, my mind flies back to December 7, 1941. I had just gone with the Japanese friend to Staten Island, and when we returned on the ferry boat to the Battery, a newsboy was hawking the New York Inquirer with the headline “JAPS ATTACK PEARL HARBOR”.

  I remember that day very clearly, even to the faces of some of the people in the subway. But I am hard put to explain why I have not written you during the past month. I have been busy, of course, but I never take that as an excuse for not writing. I have certainly thought of you and Francis often enough, but I suppose that I have not written chiefly because I have been reluctant to reveal the awful truth that I may not return to New York at all in 1983. Normally I would be returning in January, but this will be my 13th year teaching without sabbatical leave (as opposed to unpaid leave). Unlike full-time teachers, who get a sabbatical leave every seventh year, I get mine in the thirteenth year. When I made the decision to stay in Japan for the entire time I thought with delight of seeing the spring in Japan for the first time in almost twenty years. (I did not go to Japan in the spring when I had my last sabbatical leave.) I thought with even greater pleasure of the immense amount of work I would be able to accomplish during the unbroken period of eighteen months. I did not sufficiently think of how much I would miss my friends in New York. Nor, alas, did I anticipate the number of distractions that have effectively kept me from doing my work. That is the unhappy truth that has kept me from writing you. Of course, it would not be impossible to fly back to New York. There are cheap plane tickets on airlines you have not heard of, by circuitous routes over the South Pole or possibly the Gobi Desert. But I have irrevocably let my apartment in New York for the spring, and it would be strange and perhaps unpleasant to be in New York and unable to get my own books or rummage through bottom drawers for papers I stuffed away when I left.

  [. . .]

  I enjoyed your account of Roberto Pane leaping from his chair in indignation over the book on Bernini that failed to treat the Counter-Reformation. Somehow I recalled a poetry reading given by Giuseppe Ungaretti in New York (at Columbia). I had met him the day before at a party, and found him so extraordinary that, although my Italian is really restricted to what people say in Verdi operas, I persuaded myself that I would understand him. I might have, but he began the lecture with a burst of uncontrolled rage because, on visiting the Museum of Modern Art that day, he had discovered that there were no paintings on display by an artist (I unfortunately forget who it was) whom he admired. I was struggling desperately to follow what was being said, but all I was really aware of was that something unspeakable had happened. Almost as bad as not giving the Counter-Reformation its due!

  I am glad that you liked Kawabata’s novels. The Master of Go was Ivan’s favorite, and probably was Kawabata’s own. Unlike Ivan, however, I’m unable to figure out the simplest puzzle, ever, and I could neither follow nor ignore the moves in Go. I shall re read it, after what you have said.

  [. . .] All my best to you and Francis for Christmas. As ever, Donald

  New York, January 19, 1983

  Dear Donald—

  [. . .]

  My own recollection of “JAPS ATTACK PEARL HARBOR” was riding on the top of a bus, home from school outing with my “best friend”, a pigtailed blonde who now has grandchildren, and seeing the poster “PEARL HARBOUR, MANILA, DARWIN BOMBED”. I wonder if this is accurate—whether they were all bombed in the same day—or if I have telescoped a couple of days together in my mind. But that is what I recall. It was a blazing hot day, & the “feeling” of the day is very strong to me. I was nine. I was a generation older when another moment arrived, in 1945, a winter morning when I was dressing to go to school and heard on “the wireless” that the atomic bomb had been dropped. Many episodes from the war are very clear to me, in their atmosphere as well as the facts. I remember for instance picking up the afternoon newspaper in our driveway and reading that the German armies were “ten miles from Moscow”. And, earlier, “HITLER’S DEPUTY FLIES TO SCOTLAND.” All the time of the blitz is v clear to me. Then, Australia was having constant adventures, unlike its old self: Japanese submarines blown up one night in Sydney Harbour, Americans in uniform by the tens of thousands; tremendous wartime shipping—which we were forbidden to mention, although we could sail around and around all the ships and wave to the unmentionable sailors . . . Near the end of the war, the delirious welcome to the British fleet, Mountbatten’s excursions over aircraft carriers, battleships. The Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, unmentionable too, had been in the harbour—they had been unattainable legends until then. Soldiers in battle dress from the jungle (Australian battle dress made a wretched showing beside the Americans . . .), with dark yellow or green faces from “atabrine”. What times we have passed through and somehow survived.

  I wonder what happened to your Japanese friend after his return with you from Staten Island.

  I shld confess right away that I could not possibly follow the game of Go in the novel. But I didn’t find it necessary. This no doubt would rightly be scorned by those who care deeply that the full meaning of the novel should be present; but since I thought the book marvellous in any case, I don’t feel too badly. I urged it on Francis, who read it at once and, when he put it down, said, “A masterpiece.” I too shirk puzzles, although I proudly claim skill with the London Times crossword, the only crossword I ever do. It is witty and literary, and only occasionally unfairly obscure I think. However, at first untutored glance I think it must seem insane.

  I met Ungaretti when he was at Columbia. It was at dinner at the Breunigs. I had a delightful time with him, but felt I could not establish any real rapport in so short a time, or in the way I would have liked . . . I wonder who the painter was whose exclusion from MOMA so infuriated him?—Morandi? De Chirico? De Pisis? Guttuso? . . . It wld be interesting to know. At present in NY we have the Vatican treasures (well, a small portion of them) about to break on us. Many delightful things have presented themselves this winter—we went to a supreme Lucia di L, Sutherland and Alfredo Kraus. One of the most beautiful evenings I’ve ever spent. Last night we went to the ballet (the formless “Don Quixote”), first night; Nureyev was stupendous—even the NY Times admits it this morning. One sees that he is older, yet the incredible feats and the magic take place. Afterwards we were asked to a party for him at Sardi’s (not our usual existence I assure you), and had a good time: it is nice to see the young dancers, still beautiful off stage. Many other things done, also some work. F’s Vol II of Flaubert’s letters has had a fine reception—he is glad to have the new printings as he catches many graves turned into acutes etc.

  [. . .]

  I wonder if you ever read Montale? His poetry is difficult, but there are some moderately good translations. However, the essays—recently translated in a large selection and published here—are full of highly intelligent and thoughtful observations. He is one of the few people who seem to write dispassionately and with strong opinions on the “dehumanization of art”, which becomes a preoccupation to me. I wonder if art will go on in any recognizable form, and if so will there be anything other than “mass art”. I scarcely believe there will; but one hopes to be disappointed in such pessimism. In an interview, Montale remarked—of all the rationalizers of why contemporary art necessarily takes its current forms—“I do not deny that they must follow such paths; I only deny their right to call themselves free men.”

  Like many cultivated Italians, he often—though not always—got off the track when he commented on foreign life & art, and especially when he incorporated such comments into his poems. Someone (a lesser figure by far, at least to me) who gets hopelessly bushed when he sets foot abroad is John Updike: his writings set in Italy for instance set one’s teeth on edge. Thus I wonder what you may have thought of his article in last week’s (3 Jan) New Yorker on Tanizaki and Soseki? It may be that Updike is better in Japan than elsewhere, but his “European” writings cause me to doubt . . . A propos, Mr. Stephen Shaw from Kodansha International sent me a translated novel I’ve not yet had time to read: “Child of Fortune” by Yuko Tsushima. When I suggested he should send one also to Updike, he forwarded me another copy, and I’ve sent it on accordingly. I wonder if you know this writer, and what you think of the book if so?

  All publishers pronounce this “a bad time” to publish. Yet, in twenty years of producing books, I’ve yet to hear from a publisher that it was “a good time” to publish. There has always been a dire reason why one was publishing at just the wrong time. Yet books have gone on and lived a life of their own.

  [. . .]

  “Things” in the world of course seem as if they could scarcely be worse, and no doubt that is in many places true. However, I remember one brilliant Sunday morning in London when we were walking through Belgravia to visit—I think—my mother in a nearby hotel—about a dozen years ago—and we took conscious note of the fact that this was all possible: beauty, civility, some relative degree of liberty, decency, justice, absence of fear. And that historically it had come about against the odds. To manifest themselves against the odds is perhaps in the nature of civilised things; although the groundswell producing them is long and arduous, they have a freakish existence too, an element of almost constant surprise.

  [. . .] In mid-March we are off to Italy for just a month. At San Carlo at Naples, there is a production of Mussorgsky’s “Salambô”; and we also take a little trip down to Reggio Calabria to see “the bronzes of Riace”, those colossal Greek 5th c. BC statues found in the sea a few years ago, now restored and on view to an astounded public (which we hope will not have arrived in late March; although by Easter the crowds will presumably re-emerge). All thrilling.