Autumnal Bellow

Town Lake, Austin.

I finished reading Saul Bellow's letters. Tremendous, of course. A couple of striking themes emerge. One is of how many enemies Bellow created over the course of his life - not least of which were several ex-wives, intellectuals, critics and fellow writers. There is something of the philosopher or sage in Bellow's natural tone, yet for all of his wisdom, he managed to make quite a hash of his personal life. When it comes to personal relations, it's hard to trust in the wisdom of a man who married five times and was divorced on four occasions - and was never the instigator of divorce proceedings.

The book is very moving about the aging process. Bellow was eighty-eight when he died, and naturally enough, the book traces his depleting energies. As autumn makes its brief appearance in Austin, I felt sympathy as the great man of letters chronicled his diminishing powers. Although not yet half the age Bellow was when he died, perhaps for the first time recently I've felt touched by the question of mortality. A great friend of mine stayed with me this past week, a friend who lost his wife to cancer at the age of forty-six a little over a month ago.  Autumn, after all, is the season of reflection...

'But I'd better not try thinking today. My mind isn't very good. It's like the weather coming over the Lake: foggy. The sparrows are sitting in my tree, waiting for spring to start again. I knew their ancestors.'

Saul Bellow, 1966.

Eastside.

Fast Folks

Sixth Street, Austin, Texas.

East Austin Studio Tour

The East Austin Studio Tour - a couple of weekends every year when the city's artists throw open their studio doors, show (and hopefully sell) their work...and I manage to feel a brief connection to the city.

Game Over

Night Falls Fast

Front room, Lustre Pearl - Austin.

What I'm Reading: The Letters of Saul Bellow

I left NYC almost three years ago, after a creative sojourn in Williamstown, MA. In a letter written from a dude ranch in Nevada in the mid-50's, holed-up trying to expedite a divorce, Bellow catches something of what prompted my move:

'This sort of life suits me more than I thought possible. I fish and ride, and walk and read and write; at moments I even think. On Columbus Day I lit a candle, for isn't this what America was supposed to be?

Wasn't one supposed to think a bit here?'

Two Bottles.

When I was a kid, my first day in nursery school I had a wooden block thrown in my eye. I required surgery, and for a time I wore glasses. Since then, perhaps, I've associated glasses with a certain vulnerability, and on occasion empathized  an inordinate amount with those who wear them.

My wife wears contacts, but at night, reading in bed, she switches to her glasses. Without them her eyesight is poor...but when she wears them, unfailingly I am moved to great tenderness for her. My lovely wife.