Bech (21 page)
Authors: John Updike
N
OV. 4
. Svartz-Notz. Armenian cathedral. Old bones in gold bands. Our escort has withered arm, war record, dear smile, writing long novel about 1905 uprising. New city pink and mauve stone, old one Asiatic heaped rubble. Ruins of Alexander’s palace, passed through on way to India. Gorgeous gorge.
N
OV. 5
. Lake Sevan, grim gray sulphuric beach, lowered lake six feet to irrigate land. Land dry and rosy. Back at hotel, man stopped in lobby, recognized me, here from Fresno visiting relatives,
said he couldn’t finish
The Chosen
, asked for autograph. Dinner with Armenian science fiction writers, Kate in her element, they want to know if I know Ray Bradbury, Marshall McLuhan, Vance Packard, Mitchell Wilson. I don’t. Oh. I say I know Norman Podhoretz and they ask if he wrote
Naked and Dead
.
N
OV. 6
. Long drive to “working” monastery. Two monks live in it. Chapel carved from solid rock, bushes full of little strips of cloth, people make a wish. Kate borrows my handkerchief, tears off strip, ties to bush, make a wish. Blushes when I express surprise. Ground littered with sacrificial bones. In courtyard band of farmers having ceremonial cookout honoring birth of son. Insist we join them, Reynoldses tickled pink, hard for American diplomats to get to clambake like this, real people. Priest scruffy sly fellow with gold fangs in beard. Armenians all wearing sneakers, look like Saroyan characters. Flies in wine, gobbets of warm lamb, blessings, toasts heavily directed toward our giggling round-kneed strawberry-blonde Ellen R. As we leave we glimpse real monk, walking along tumbledown parapet. Unexpectedly young. Pale, expressionless, very remote. A spy? Dry lands make best saints. Reynoldses both sick from effects of people’s feast, confined to hotel while Kate and I, hardened sinners, iron stomachs, go to dinner with white-haired artist, painter of winsome faces, sloe eyes, humanoid fruit, etc.
N
OV. 7
. Woke to band music; today Revolution Day. Should be in Red Square, but Kate talked me out of it. Smaller similar parade here, in square outside hotel. Overlook while eating breakfast of blini and caviar parade of soldiers, red flags, equipment enlarging phallically up to rockets, then athletes
in different colors like gumdrops, swarm at end of children, people, citizens, red dresses conspicuous. Kate kept clucking tongue and saying she hates war. Reynoldses still rocky, hardly eat. Ellen admires my digestive toughness, I indifferent to her praise. Am I falling in love with Kate? Feel insecure away from her side, listen to her clear throat and toss in hotel room next to me. We walk in sun, I jostle to get between her and withered arm, jealous when they talk in Rooski, remember her blush when she tied half my torn hanky to that supernatural bush. What was her wish? Time to leave romantic Armenia. Back to Moscow by ten, ears ache fearfully in descent. Bitter cold, dusting of snow. Napoleon trembles.
This sample letter, never sent, was found enclosed in the journal. “Claire” appears to have been the predecessor, in Bech’s affections, of Miss Norma Latchett. Reprinted by permission, all rights © Henry Bech
.
D
EAR
C
LAIRE:
I am back in Moscow, after three days in Leningrad, an Italian opera set begrimed by years in an arctic warehouse and populated by a million out-of-work baritone villains. Today, the American Ambassador gave me a dinner to which no Russians came, because of something they think we did in the Congo, and I spent the whole time discussing shoes with Mrs. Ambassador, who hails originally, as she put it, from Charleston. She even took her shoe off so I could hold it—it was strange, warm, small. How are you? Can you feel my obsolete
ardor? Can you taste the brandy? I live luxuriously, in the hotel where visiting plenipotentiaries from the Emperor of China are lodged, and Arabs in white robes leave oil trails down the hall. There may be an entire floor of English homosexual defectors, made over on the model of Cambridge digs. Lord, it’s lonely, and bits of you—the silken depression beside each anklebone, the downy rhomboidal small of your back—pester me at night as I lie in exiled majesty, my laborious breathing being taped by threescore OGPU rookies. You were so beautiful. What happened? Was it all me, my fearful professional gloom, my Flaubertian syphilitic impotence? Or was it your shopgirl go-go brass, that held like a pornographic novel in a bureau (your left nipple was the drawer pull) a Quaker A-student from Darien? We turned each other inside out, it seemed to me, and made all those steak restaurants in the East Fifties light up like seraglios under bombardment. I will never be so young again. I am transported around here like a brittle curio; plug me into the nearest socket and I spout red, white, and blue. The Soviets like me because I am redolent of the oppressive Thirties. I like them for the same reason. You, on the other hand, were all Sixties, a bath of sequins and glowing pubic tendrils. Forgive my unconscionable distance, our preposterous prideful parting, the way our miraculously synchronized climaxes came to nothing, like novae. Oh, I send you such airmail lost love, Claire, from this very imaginary place, the letter may beat the plane home, and jump into your refrigerator, and nestle against the illuminated parsley as if we had never said unforgivable things.
H.
Folded into the letter, as a kind of postscript, a picture postcard. On the obverse, in bad color, a picture of an iron statue, male. On the reverse, this message:
Dear Claire: What I meant to
say in my unsent letter was that
you were so good to me, good for
me, there was a goodness in me you
brought to birth. Virtue is so rare,
I thank you forever. The man on the
other side is Mayakovsky, who shot
himself and thereby won Stalin’s un-
dying love. Henry
Gay with Sputnik stamps, the card passed through the mails uncensored and was waiting for him when he at last returned from his travels and turned the key of his stifling, airless, unchanged apartment. It had been strenuously canceled. The lack of any accompanying note was eloquent. He and Claire never communicated again, though for a time Bech would open the telephone directory to the page where her number was encircled and hold it on his lap.—ED
.
Bibliography
1. Books by Henry Bech (b. 1923, d. 19—)
Travel Light
, novel. New York: The Vellum Press, 1955. London: J. J. Goldschmidt, 1957.
Brother Pig
, novella. New York: The Vellum Press, 1957. London: J. J. Goldschmidt, 1958.
When the Saints
, miscellany. [
Contents:
“Uncles and Dybbuks,” “Subway Gum,” “A Vote For Social Unconsciousness,” “Soft-Boiled Sergeants,” “The Vanishing Wisecrack,” “Graffiti,” “Sunsets Over Jersey,” “The
Arabian Nights
at Your Own Pace,” “Orthodoxy and Orthodontics,” “Rag Bag” (collection of book reviews), “Displeased in the Dark” (collection of cinema reviews), forty-three untitled paragraphs under the head of “Tumblers Clicking.”] New York: The Vellum Press, 1958.
The Chosen
, novel. New York: The Vellum Press, 1963. London: J. J. Goldschmidt, 1963.
The Best of Bech
, anthology. London: J. J. Goldschmidt, 1968. [Contains
Brother Pig
and selected essays from
When the Saints
.]
Think Big
, novel. [In progress.]
2. Uncollected Articles and Short Stories
“Stee-raight’n Yo’ Shoulduhs, Boy!”,
Liberty
, XXXIV.33 (August 21, 1943) 62–63.
“Home for Hannukah,”
Saturday Evening Post
, CCXVII.2 (January 8, 1944) 45–46, 129–133.
“Kosher Konsiderations,”
Yank
, IV.4 (January 26, 1944) 6.
“Rough Crossing,”
Collier’s
, XLIV (February 22, 1944) 23–25.
“London Under Buzzbombs,”
New Leader
, XXVII. 11 (March 11, 1944) 9.
“The Cockney Girl,”
Story
, XIV.3 (May–June, 1944) 68–75.
“V-Mail from Brooklyn,”
Saturday Evening Post
, CCXVII.25 (June 30, 1944) 28–29, 133–137.
“Letter from Normandy,”
New Leader
, XXVII.29 (July 15, 1944) 6.
“Hey, Yank!,”
Liberty
, XXXV.40 (September 17, 1944) 48–49.
“Letter from the Bulge,”
New Leader
, XXVIII.1 (January 3, 1945) 6.
“Letter from the Reichstag,”
New Leader
, XXVIII.23 (June 9, 1945) 4.
“Fräulein, kommen Sie hier, bitte,”
The Partisan Review
, XII (October, 1945), 413–431.
“Rubble” [poem],
Tomorrow
, IV.7 (December, 1945) 45.
“Soap” [poem],
The Nation
, CLXII (June 22, 1946) 751.
“Ivan in Berlin,”
Commentary
, I.5 (August, 1946) 68–77.
“Jig-a-de-Jig,”
Liberty
, XXVII.47 (October 15, 1946) 38–39.
“Novels from the Wreckage,”
New York Times Book Review
, LII (January 19, 1947) 6.
The bulk of Bech’s reviews, articles, essays, and prose-poems 1947–58 were reprinted in
When the Saints (see
above
).
Only exceptions are listed below
.
“My Favorite Reading in 1953,”
New York Times Book Review
, LXVII (December 25, 1953) 2.
“Smokestacks” [poem],
Poetry
, LXXXIV.5 (August, 1954) 249–50.
“
Larmes d’huile
” [poem],
Accent
, XV.4 (Autumn, 1955) 101.
“Why I Will Vote for Adlai Stevenson Again” [part of paid
political advertisement printed in various newspapers], October, 1956.
“My Favorite Salad,”
McCall’s
, XXXIV.4 (April, 1957) 88.
“Nihilistic? Me?” [interview with Lewis Nichols],
New York Times Book Review
, LXI (October 12, 1957) 17–18, 43.
“Rain King for a Day,”
New Republic
, CXL.3 (January 19, 1959) 22–23.
“The Eisenhower Years: Instant Nostalgia,”
Esquire
, LIV.8 (August, 1960) 54–61.
“Lay Off, Norman,”
The New Republic
, CXLI.22 (May 14, 1960) 19–20.
“Bogie: The Tic That Told All,”
Esquire
, LV.10 (October, 1960) 44–45, 108–111.
“The Landscape of Orgasm,”
House and Garden
, XXI.3 (December, 1960) 136–141.
“The Moth on the Pin,”
Commentary
, XXXI (March, 1961) 223–224.
“Iris and Muriel and Atropos,”
New Republic
, CXLIV.20 (May 15, 1961) 16–17.
“Superscrew,”
Big Table
, II.3 (Summer, 1961), 64–79.
“M-G-M and the U.S.A.,”
Commentary
, XXXII (October, 1961) 305–316.
“My Favorite Christmas Carol,”
Playboy
, VIII. 12 (December, 1961) 289.
“The Importance of Beginning with a B: Barth, Borges, and Others,”
Commentary
, XXXIII (February, 1962) 136–142.
“Down in Dallas” [poem],
New Republic
, CXLVI.49 (December 2, 1963) 28.
“My Favorite Three Books of 1963,”
New York Times Book Review
, LXVII (December 19, 1963) 2.
“Daniel Fuchs: An Appreciation,”
Commentary
, XLI.2 (February, 1964) 39–45.
“Silence,”
The Hudson Review
, XVII (Summer, 1964) 258–275.
“Rough Notes from Tsardom,”
Commentary
, XLI.2 (February, 1965) 39–47.
“Frightened Under Kindly Skies” [poem],
Prairie Schooner
, XXXIX.2 (Summer, 1965) 134.
“The Eternal Feminine As It Hits Me” [contribution to a symposium],
Rogue
, III.2 (February, 1966) 69.
“What Ever Happened to Jason Honeygale?”
Esquire
, LXI.9 (September, 1966) 70–73, 194–198.
“The Romantic Agony Under Truman: A Reminiscence,”
New American Review
, III (April, 1968) 59–81.
“My Three Least Favorite Books of 1968,”
Book World
, VI (December 20, 1968) 13.
3. Critical Articles Concerning (Selected List)
Prescott, Orville, “More Dirt,”
New York Times
, October 12, 1955.
Weeks, Edward, “
Travel Light
Heavy Reading,”
Atlantic Monthly
, CCI.10 (October, 1955) 131–132.
Kirkus Service, Virginia, “Search for Meaning in Speed,” XXIV (October 11, 1955).
Time
, “V-v-vrooom!,” LXXII.17 (October 12, 1955) 98.
Macmanaway, Fr. Patrick X., “Spiritual Emptiness Found Behind Handlebars,”
Commonweal
, LXXII.19 (October 12, 1955) 387–388.
Engels, Jonas, “Consumer Society Justly Burlesqued,”
Progressive
, XXI.35 (October 20, 1955) 22.
Kazin, Alfred, “Triumphant Internal Combustion,”
Commentary
, XXIX (December, 1955) 90–96.
Time
, “Puzzling Porky,” LXXIV.3 (January 19, 1957) 75.
Hicks, Granville, “Bech Impressive Again,”
Saturday Review
, XLIII.5 (January 30, 1957) 27–28.
Callagan, Joseph, S. J., “Theology of Despair Dictates Dark Allegory,”
Critic
, XVII.7 (February 8, 1957) 61–62.
West, Anthony, “Oinck, Oinck,”
New Yorker
, XXXIII.4 (March 14, 1957) 171–173.
Steiner, George, “Candide as Schlemiel,”
Commentary
, XXV (March, 1957) 265–270.
Maddocks, Melvin, “An Unmitigated Masterpiece,”
New York Herald Tribune Book Review
, February 6, 1957.
Hyman, Stanley Edgar, “Bech Zeroes In,”
New Leader
, XLII.9 (March 1, 1957) 38.
Poore, Charles, “Harmless Hodgepodge,”
New York Times
, August 19, 1958.
Marty, Martin, “Revelations Within the Secular,”
Christian Century
, LXXVII (August 20, 1958) 920.
Aldridge, John, “Harvest of Thoughtful Years,” Kansas City
Star
, August 17, 1958.
Time
, “Who Chose Whom?” LXXXIII.26 (May 24, 1963) 121.
Klein, Marcus, “Bech’s Mighty Botch,”
Reporter
, XXX.13 (May 23, 1963) 54.
Thompson, John, “So Bad It’s Good,”
New York Review of Books
, II.14 (May 15, 1963) 6.
Dilts, Susan, “Sluggish Poesy, Murky Psychology,” Baltimore
Sunday Sun
, May 20, 1963.
Miller, Jonathan, “Oopsie!,”
Show
, III.6 (June, 1963) 49–52.
Macdonald, Dwight, “More in Sorrow,”
Partisan Review
, XXVIII (Summer, 1963) 271–279.
Kazin, Alfred, “Bech’s Strange Case Reopened,”
Evergreen Review
, VII.7 (July, 1963) 19–24.
Podhoretz, Norman, “Bech’s Noble Novel: A Case Study in the Pathology of Criticism,”
Commentary
, XXXIV (October, 1963) 277–286.
Gilman, Richard, “Bech, Gass, and Nabokov: The Territory Beyond Proust,”
Tamarack Review
, XXXIII.1 (Winter, 1963) 87–99.
Minnie, Moody, “Myth and Ritual in Bech’s Evocations of Lust and Nostalgia,”
Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, V
.2 (Winter–Spring, 1964) 1267–1279.
Terral, Rufus, “Bech’s Indictment of God,”
Spiritual Rebels in Post-Holocaustal Western Literature
, ed. Webster Schott (Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 1964).
Elbek, Leif, “Damer og dæmoni,”
Vindrosen
, Copenhagen (January–February, 1965) 67–72.
L’Heureux, Sister Marguerite, “The Sexual Innocence of Henry Bech,”
America
, CX (May 11, 1965) 670–674.
Brodin, Pierre, “Henri Bech, le juif réservé,”
Ecrivains Americans d’aujourd’hui
(Paris: N.E.D., 1965).
Wagenbach, Dolf, “Bechkritic und Bechwissenschaft,”
Neue Rundschau
, Frankfurt am Main (September–January, 1965–1966) 477–481.
Fiedler, Leslie, “
Travel Light:
Synopsis and Analysis,”
E-Z Outlines
, No. 403 (Akron, O.: Hand-E Student Aids, 1966).
Tuttle, L. Clark, “Bech’s Best Not Good Enough,”
The Observer
(London), April 22, 1968.
Steinem, Gloria, “What Ever Happened to Henry Bech?,”
New York
, II.46 (November 14, 1969) 17–21.