Highlights of the Current New Yorker

The current (9/19/11) issue of The New Yorker includes several fascinating stories. First is a compelling childhood memoir, “Dear Life,” by one of my very favorite writers, Alice Munro. Munro grew up in a fairly rural area, and her stories are a mixture of happy memories despite family troubles, and little hints of the madness and pain that can be found in rural Canada as well as anywhere else. Her memoirs sound so much like her wonderful stories: detailed, intimate, yet always with a little bit of the cool remove that accompanies her astute observations. Also in this issue is an Ann Beattie short story, “Starlight,” about Pat Nixon; Beattie’s new book, “Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life,” will be published this November. Beattie captures how very odd and difficult the Nixons’ last day in the White House, and then the years in California, must have been; she also captures President Nixon’s odd, stiff demeanor and conversation. The third article of particular interest to me is one on T. S. Eliot, written by the critic Louis Menand, and titled “Practical Cat.” Of course, like every English major, I read and admired Eliot’s poetry in college and grad school, especially “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Waste Land,” but I must admit I haven’t read it much if at all since those days. The article here is in response to the recent publication of a two-volume collection of almost two thousand pages of Eliot’s correspondence. Apparently these letters shed new light on the period of 1898 to 1925, and most particularly on the brief years when he produced most of his work in London, 1917 to 1925. It seems that no one knew Eliot very well, as he was a bit of a chameleon, making connections and friendships with members various factions in literary life in England at the time, yet keeping himself a bit apart; throughout, he subtly let it be known that he had a “cool and disinterested contempt” (Menand’s words) for all the English writers. He did admire Joyce, but that seems to be about it. The article also discusses Eliot's very unhappy first marriage, his increasingly conservative, right wing views, and his enormous literary influence. In sum, says Menand, “He made a revolution. He changed the way poetry in English is written....He is the most important figure in twentieth-century English-language literary culture.” I don’t think I agree with this last sentence. What about Joyce? What about Woolf? But Menand makes a good case for his claims. I ended the article not liking Eliot much, but with a renewed appreciation for the magnitude of his achievements in his poetry and literary criticism. Maybe I will go back to re-read his poetry. Thank you, The New Yorker, for these three stimulating and informative pieces!