Sharon Presents Women's Letters edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen Adler

Abigail Adams to John Adams

 

“Letters had always defeated distance, but with the coming of e-mail, time seemed to be vanquished as well.”—Thomas Mallon 

“The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity.”—Ezra Pound

Jacquie's Email Hello Literary Ladies! In this confusing world of e-mail, texts, Tik Tok, and other electronic forms of communication, I look forward to continuing to explore our theme of “Letters, Journals, Diaries” and what that means for the future of history, truth, fact, memory, and perception. What sort of record will remain for future generations and what will be lost? With that in mind (or at least on MY mind) I look forward to our being together this Wednesday, November 20th for Sharon's presentation on letters and books of Lisa Grunwald and Stephen Adler, which looks to be a cornucopia of personalities and their perspectives, all with Sharon's careful curation. Perfection!

There has been a change of venue, as Barbara is unable to host, but Christine has graciously offered her home. We will be brown bagging it (with lunch or not lunch?) though Christine did mention that Chucker is a fan of leftover cucumber sandwiches. I will also be bringing my autumn go-to chocolate chip apple cake, so there will be bits and bobs on which to nosh as well as coffee and tea. As usual, we will begin gathering at noon, and Joanna will (hopefully remember to) ring the bell at 1PM to begin our meeting.
Until then, enjoy the sunshine, or lament the lack of rain, or both.
I look forward to being together with you all. x Jacquie

Christine's Minutes Twelve members of the Hastings Literature Club gathered at Christine’s house to be surprised by yet another Literature Club first.

An actual lunch consisting of very green recipe-less soup, cucumber sandwiches and warm tartlets was served, and then topped off with Jacquie’s famous apple cake.

President Joanna rang the bell at 1:03. Members were pleased to hear an update on Barbara’s health: she is recovering. Several books were recommended including: James, by Percival Everett; Where We Are Now, by Lawrence Lessing; Mighty Red, by Louise Erdrich; Jane Austen: A Life, by Carol Shields; I Hope This Finds You Well, by Natalie Sue; and Eastbound, by Maylis de Kerangal.

Joanna read her excellent minutes on last meeting's Clarissa which she graciously kept short so that Sharon had plenty of time for her presentation. It must be said that if Joanna were applying for the job of recording secretary, she would certainly land it.

Our treasury remains the same at $248.06.

Sharon’s program, in this year of “Letters and Journals,” presented letters from a compilation, Women’s Letters—America from the Revolutionary War to the Present, edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen Adler. Who, it was announced, are not only married to each other, and delightful people, but also very good friends of Sharon’s. This will signify.

We started off with a little background on these two extraordinary productive writers. Also, journalists, editors and who knows what else. Lisa Grunwald, born in 1959, is the author of seven novels and has a long illustrious history in journalism and publishing. She came by this honestly: her father was the editor of Time magazine, and her mother wrote a column for Women’s Wear Daily. She also has a side hustle called “Procrastination Arts,” and as someone who considers procrastination an undervalued skill, I have to say that it is very cool and worth checking out. Lisa’s most recent novel is The Evolution of Annabel Craig.

Stephen has worked for The Tampa Times, American Lawyer (where he first encountered our own exceptional Sharon), the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. While editor-in-chief at Reuters, he garnered eight Pulitzers. He is currently “retired.”

Lisa and Stephen did NOT meet during their time at Harvard; they had to await the intervention of a blind date in 1987. The world of literature and especially epistolary literature has been grateful ever since.

Their three anthologies of letters are Letters of the Century (the 20th); The Marriage Book; and Women’s Letters.

To get things started, Sharon showed us a clip of Lisa and Stephen being interviewed on C-Span Book TV, back in 1999, in which the couple spoke of their twentieth century collection of letters and how they made their choices. They generally preferred to have only one letter from each writer, and they always included each letter in its entirety—this often affected their choices.

And then for something totally new and different.

Making excellent use of the technology that enabled our Literature Club to continue (fearlessly, doggedly) throughout the pandemic, as a special treat Sharon had set up a Zoom call with Lisa and Stephen, so we could have a real time Q and A with the writers. Not only that, but the ever-alert Sharon had prepared several questions for the writers. What inspired them to start creating these letter collections? Fittingly, it was a Valentine book filled with love letters. How many did they read for their first book? Well, they read about 400,000 letters in total for The Century in Letters. And yes, of course they had to “kill their darlings.” Before every single letter in their collections, there is a brief blurb setting up the context in which the letter was written; they did this because they felt it was important to tell some history and present the letters chronologically, and this often required explanations. As for how they divided up the work: Lisa was the one who captured, found and initially read through the many letters; Steve read the finalists and did all the work of getting the rights to publish. And Lisa wrote all the introductory paragraphs.

What was the big surprise? That maybe wasn’t such a surprise at all. Well, love letters are all the same, and human emotions transcend the times in which they are written. Contrary to what some may think, romantic love is not a modern invention. They were also interested to discover how the voice of the writers stayed the same from youth to senescence. Asked what the theme would be were they to do another collection, they answered that they would look at the letters of immigrants or at emails. Either way, they doubt this will happen, given the current state of publishing.

They both agreed that despite all the gloomy declarations that the Internet has killed correspondence, they believe that the telephone, far more than email, has been the culprit that has removed valuable exchanges from the material available to scholars and historians. Alas.

After thanking Lisa and Stephen for their gracious willingness to join us at our meeting, we turned to the excitement of the actual letters.

This writer will not even try to quote all the gems we heard, for that you will have to read the book. We heard from a wonderfully interesting, quirky, and powerful group of women. These included Abigail Grant castigating her husband for cowardice in 1776; Juliana Smith writing to her brother John about a toothbrush; Martha Washington dispensing advice about worms; Theodosia Burr, daughter of Aaron, who lost her only son; and a Cherokee woman writing to the government. We also heard from Tamsin Donner, a Donner party member who did not get eaten*; from one writer and her self-righteous outrage over Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; from six-year-old Grace writing to Abraham Lincoln; from Clara Barton writing on the eve of battle; from Emily Dickinson; from a woman seeking her possibly dead six-toed husband, wondering if he was the one mauled by a bear; a Dear John letter from Agnes von something to Hemingway; and Marilyn Monroe’s impassioned plea, taped to her chest, imploring her surgeon to not remove her ovaries. The final letter described an enticing encounter with Al Pacino.

Every single letter we read had a distinct voice, and a story to tell. If Lisa and Stephen struggled to make their final decisions, imagine what Sharon had to go through to come up with fewer than thirty letters out of 400. We are all grateful to her for her excellent culling.

It was a fascinating afternoon.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

*Correction from Sharon. She did in fact get eaten, sometime after writing the letter. The nature of this correction may also qualify as a Literature Club first.

Christine Presents Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Jacquie's Email: Hello Literary Ladies! I thought that perhapf I muft write thif whole email in the fafhion of the day, but fellcheck would have none of it!*

Just a reminder that we will be meeting this Wednesday, the day after the election (!), at Dianaʼs welcoming home. Christine will be presenting on Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady: Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life. And Particularly Shewing, the Distresses that May Attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, In Relation to Marriage by Samuel Richardson.

When I wrote to ask Christine if this was indeed the correct full name of Richardson's epistolary novel she wrote:

      “Yes, indeed that is the title of the book, a case in which the length of title corresponds to the length of the book, just barely. Feel free to make the title even longer. It is a profoundly strange book to read in this world we live in. And I can't believe I am presenting one day after election day, not that I anticipate knowing for sure the results....in fact, I expect to be in an even greater state of anxiety than I am now.”

So, I look forward to both the conversation and Dianaʼs not lunch, beginning at noon, as well as Christine's presentation, which will begin shortly after Joanna rings the bell at 1pm. I imagine our time together, as always, will pass swiftly by.

Hope to fee you all on Wednefday! xJacquie

*The long s, also known as the medial or initial s, was a version of the lowercase “s” that was used in English from the 18th to 19th centuries. It was written as “f” and was used in the following ways:

• Only for lowercase “s”
• At the beginning or middle of a word
• In double “s” sequences, unless the letters were at the end of the word
• For example, “ſinfulneſs” for “sinfulness” and “poſſeſs” for “possess”

The long s was considered antiquated by the late 18th century and began to disappear, eventually stopping its use in printed materials in England in the 1810s and 1820s. However, it was still used in handwriting for longer. (From AI Overview. Imagine one day there will be an asterisk explaining AI...)

Joanna's Minutes The members of the Hastings Literature Club gathered on Wednesday, November 6, to spend a few hours not thinking about the previous day's election and the four years ahead. They were only somewhat successful in this endeavor.

More successful was Diana Jaeger's effort to make a delicious, tangy chicken salad and set out a lovely spread for us to enjoy. Certain members were delighted when Diana returned from the kitchen with a large bowl of more chicken salad and felt it permissible to take a second (and possibly third) helping.

Jacquie Weitzman recounted having visited the White House with her sister for a children's book event hosted by the Bidens. Again, the Literature Club strove to not think about the future. Carol Barkin recently back from France recommended Julia Child’s book My Life in France. Life in France was a comforting notion to many members.

The bell was rung at or about 1:00 PM and the meeting began.

Treasurer Lori Walsh confirmed the unchanged balance in the Club’s account: $248.06.

We then settled in for Christine Lehner's presentation on the novel Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. This summary of Christine's breakneck presentation strives to be short, in inverse proportion to the novel under examination, known to be the longest novel in the English language.

Christine succinctly asked and answered the rhetorical question: why Clarissa? Because it is there. Like Mallory's Everest, Clarissa is monumental: 969,000 words, somewhere in the vicinity of 3800 pages, or 103 hours as an audio book. Even its full title is long: Clarissa: or, the History of a Young Lady: Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life, and Particularly Showing the Distress that May Attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, in Relation to Marriage.

Samuel Richardson was born in 1689, one of nine children. His father was a joiner (carpenter) of great skill. Richardson said that he spent his youth telling stories and writing letters. By the age of 13, he became known for his letter-writing ability, helping girls write their replies to love letters.

To gratify a thirst for reading, Richardson decided to become a printer and, at age 17, signed on for a seven-year apprenticeship, and then set up his own business. In 1721, he married Martha. By 1723 he was printing a Jacobite political bi-weekly for the first Duke of Wharton He would later incorporate many of Wharton’s libertine characteristics in the character of Robert Lovelace.

Meanwhile, over a 10-year marriage, Martha gave birth to five sons and one daughter. Four of these sons died before Martha did in 1731; the fifth son died within a year of his mother's death. Richardson then remarried to another daughter of a printer; she went on to give birth to six children, five daughters and one son. Four of the daughters lived to adulthood but their son, another Samuel, died as an infant. Richardson ran a successful business. In 1739 Richardson was asked by his friends to write a little volume of letters. This project inspired his first novel Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded—a mere 380 pages long. He wrote a sequel to the well-liked Pamela, which was not a success and then embarked on the project that would be Clarissa. It was published in full in 1744 in seven volumes.

Richardson wrote other books and continued to work at his thriving printing business. By 1758 he was suffering from various ailments. He died in July 1761 and was buried next to his first wife. Having no surviving sons, his printing business went to a second nephew, with no head for business, who sold the copyrights to Richardson's novels.

From a young age and throughout his life Richardson wrote copious letters. He believed in the usefulness of written letters to reveal character. Despite the formidable task of summarizing this enormous work, Christine did so in six words: things go from bad to worse. Much of Clarissa consists of letters between the title character and her best friend Anna Howe and also letters from the full cast of characters.

Clarissa Harlowe has been had been left an inheritance. Robert Lovelace, a wealthy libertine and heir to a substantial estate, begins to court Arabella, Clarissa’s older sister. Lovelace quickly moves on from Arabella to Clarissa. Clarissa dislikes and distrusts the notorious Lovelace; Arabella grows jealous of Lovelace’s interest in the younger girl. James, their brother also dislikes Lovelace because of a duel the two had fought. James and Arabella also resent that their grandfather left Clarissa a piece of land.

The entire Harlowe family is in favour of Clarissa marrying Roger Solmes. However, Clarissa does not wish to marry him, either. The Harlowes begin restricting Clarissa’s contact with the outside world by forbidding her to see Lovelace. Eventually they forbid her to either leave her room or send letters to her friend. Trapped and desperate to regain her freedom Clarissa continues to communicate with Anna secretly and begins a correspondence with Lovelace, while trying to convince her parents not to force her to marry Solmes.

Through clandestine correspondence, Lovelace pressures Clarissa into agreeing to elope with him. Clarissa reluctantly agrees but then changes her mind. She goes in person at the agreed nighttime hour to tell Lovelace she will not elope with him. Frightened by the repercussions of being seen to be eloping with the enemy, Clarissa stops resisting Lovelace, and allows herself to be carried off. Lovelace keeps Clarissa his prisoner for many months. She's held at several lodgings, including unknowingly a brothel. And although Lovelace puts her under increasing pressure to submit to him, Clarissa does not waver and manages to escape. Lovelace then drugs then rapes her. Clarissa escapes (again). She is wracked by illness; she reaches out to her father asking him to lift the curse he put upon her; her father does so. Eventually Clarissa dies in the full consciousness of her virtue and trusting in a better life after death.

Clarissa’s relatives finally realize that they have been wrong, but it comes too late.

We spent the afternoon listening to Christine’s summary of the action (and sometimes inaction) of the novel, read passages that gave us a flavor of Richardson's prose and not thinking about the other stuff to which the phrase “things go from bad to worse” might apply.

Respectfully submitted,
Joanna Riesman

Jacquie Presents: Sense & Sensibility, the Screenplay and Diaries by Emma Thompson

 Jacquie's Email  Hello, Most Amiable of Literary Ladies!!! I endeavor to remind you of the next meeting of our dear Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson but a few days earlier than I have done in the past, to give you the time, if you have the inclination and find it agreeable with your streaming service, to watch a film I hold in the highest regard, Sense and Sensibility, the making of which is the basis of the presentation which will be given by yours truly a few days hence: Sense & Sensibility: The Screenplay and Diaries by Emma Thompson. I am hoping that the enjoyment of my presentation will not be incumbent on your having recently viewed the film, but I suggest that it will certainly add to it, affording you recent memory of the story and scenes referred to in the diaries. I must say, it is the most pleasing of films, and one I have been delighted in viewing over and over again in recent days.

We will be gathering for what we can only anticipate will be a sumptuously displayed not lunch at Gita's gracious home, with its most genial view. We will meet at the usual hour of twelve noon. Our president, Joanna, will assuredly seek our attention at 1 PM for our meeting to commence.

I sincerely look forward to being in your gentle company next week.

Now, my dear madams, I must release you, x Jacquie

Link to the film on Amazon Prime Video

Christine's Minutes Eleven members, one associate, and one daughter/honorary member, Gita’s daughter Ilsa, met on October 23 in Gita’s lovely sunroom/treehouse. Ilsa flew in from Paris especially to be with us, and of course to make sure that Gita’s 90th birthday was celebrated in a most literary manner. Which it was, with a pumpkin cheesecake and cookies and fruit. The highlight of our cannot-be-called-a-not-lunch were frittatas à la the Barefoot Contessa.

Assorted recommendations for books and movies were shared before the official opening. These included Alexei Navalny’s diaries, in The New Yorker; The Apprentice, a movie about Trump’s early grooming by Roy Cohn; Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, based on Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; Longbourn by Jo Barker, telling the Pride and Prejudice story from the viewpoint of the servants; Bollywood’s Bride and Prejudice, and the 1994 version of Persuasion with Ciarán Hinds.

Joanna rang the bell mere minutes after 1 pm, and thanked our most gracious hostess Gita, as well as her daughter. Laura read the minutes of the October 9th meeting.

And then it was time to go to the movies. Or should I say, to make the movie? Today we heard from Jacquie about Sense and Sensibility: The Diaries by Emma Thompson.

Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously in 1811, though Jane Austen wrote it in 1795, when she was twenty years old. It is a 300-page novel written in the archaic diction of the 18th century, yet it is also funny, romantic, familial and…as we discover, perfect material for a late twentieth century movie.

Having established these important facts, Jacquie gave us some background on the inimitable Emma Thompson. She was born in London in 1959 to two actors. She did her A-levels in English, French and Latin, and went to Newnham College at Cambridge. There she became the first female member of the Footlights, where her nickname was Emma Talented. In the early 80s she was on television, and then became noticed for her role in Me and My Girl in the West End. In 1987 she played the female lead opposite Kenneth Branagh in the BBC series, Fortunes of War. They married in 1989.

Throughout the late 80s and 90s, Emma appeared in many excellent movies and films (often with Branagh), including Look Back in Anger, The Tall Guy, Henry V, Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, King Lear, Impromptu and Dead Again.

It was in 1990 that Lindsay Doran, an American producer, approached Emma about writing a screenplay for Sense and Sensibility, having seen her performance in Dead Again.

For the next five years, Emma worked diligently on the screenplay while appearing in several more remarkable films, including Howard’s End, Peter’s Friends, Much Ado About Nothing, Remains of the Day, In the Name of the Father, Junior, and Carrington.

Then, it was time to find a director. Doran saw Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet and his Eat Drink Man Woman, and decided he was the one to bring Sense and Sensibility to the screen.

His first directorial act was to ask Emma to play the role of Elinor Dashwood.

A little gossip which even Jane Austen would regard as essential to a full understanding: Emma and Kenneth’s relationship ended in 1994. They held on for a bit, then announced the split in 1995. This emotional trauma forced Emma to focus intently on the movie production. The good news – of which Austen would approve – was that while making the film she met Greg Wise, who played Willoughby, and they fell in love. They married in 2003.

At last we get to the Diaries. Well, first a quick plot summary, which I will not summarize here.

Members then read aptly chosen selections.

We heard about Ang Lee’s directing style, and how he began each day with meditation and exercises. After one meeting, Emma describes Hugh Grant breezing in and looking “repellently gorgeous.” We eavesdrop on her ‘girl talk’ with Kate Winslet and hear about the novelization problem.

Meanwhile, the paparazzi keep showing up for that gorgeous Hugh Grant. Whenever they shoot in a historic house, there would always be a cadre of National Trust volunteers in the room, making sure nothing was damaged and that no more than 11 people were in the room.

The diaries describe the eighteen takes they shot for the Elinor and Lucy Steele scene, when Edward Ferrars arrives on the scene. She describes Alan Rickman as “splendid” in uniform (and I agree).

One favorite exchange is this, between Kate Winslet (who did all her own stunts) and Alan Rickman:

Kate: My knickers have gone up my arse.

Alan: Feminine mystique strikes again.

We also hear about spots on the face, incontinence, lousy modern hotels and the fact that camphor is good for the ‘staggers.’

It must be pointed out that while we read these entertaining and instructive entries, we were accompanied by the staccato obbligato of a woodpecker just outside our aerie.

The filming and the diaries end on June 9th, and real-life kicks in.

But wait, there was more. Jacquie played for us Emma Thompson’s acceptance speech from the Golden Globes, in which she spoke just as Jane Austen would have had one of her characters speak. And going from the subline to the ridiculous, we watched Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant riff on each other on the Graham Norton show.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there are few better ways to spend an afternoon than at a Literature Club meeting, high in the trees, accompanied by avian percussion.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Joanna Presents the Mitford Sisters

Jacquie's Email: Hello Literary Ladies! Just a reminder that we will be meeting this Wednesday, October 9th in Sharon's gracious home for this coming week's meeting of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson. Not lunch will be served beginning at noon, and Joanna will ring the bell at 1pm to begin our meeting, after which she will give her presentation on The Mitfords: Six Sisters and Thousands of Letters.

Six accomplished sisters! And only two were avowed Nazis. A parent could only dream!

As we delve more deeply into this year's theme of “Letters, Journals, Diaries,” I think it will be interesting to explore the idea of how technology will affect the work of historians and fans alike in the future in their understanding of individual thinkers and artists. Do members of the younger generation still keep written diaries or journals? Do they put pen to paper to write a letter or even a note? Letters and even birthday wishes to my own three sisters are all in a cloud somewhere and therefore completely lost once I forget my email password. And though, unlike the Mitfords, these will not be of interest to anyone going forward, wouldn't you just love to read Kamala's texts to her sister?

I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday! x Jacquie

Laura's Minutes Members gathered at Sharon DeLevie’s home for a terrific not-lunch, climaxed by warm scones, to set the proper British mood for the presentation to follow.

Minutes were read from the meeting of September 25, and the treasurer's report was given. The first of our booklet corrections had Laura passing out little cards to be scotch taped into the booklet, so we really do have a February 26 meeting with Constance presenting at Carla’s home.

Joanna’s presentation is titled: “The Mitfords: Six Sisters and Thousands of Letters.” She began by introducing the family, mentioning the land, connections, and the fact there was very little money. Joanna first found the Mitfords during the pandemic, by reading two novels by Nancy Mitford. The novels explore family stories of a big, bustling family like and unlike the actual Mitford clan.

The father, David, did not believe in education for the girls, so they were educated by governesses and tutors at the various homes they lived in. The one brother, Tom, did go to boarding school, and hence is not much on the scene.

A wonderful part of Joanna’s presentation was the guide to the six sisters given to each member, so we could get to know them in a brief fashion, before we started reading their letters to one another.

Nancy, the writer, spent much of her adult life in France. During the war, she flirted with socialism and fascism, but then became a staunch Gaullist for the rest of her days.

Pamela, the country girl, married a physicist, cooked splendidly, and produced no children. After living briefly with two women in Switzerland, she returned to England and became a poultry expert.

Diana, the beauty, admired Adolf Hitler, and served time in prison during WWII for it, spending the rest of the war under house arrest. She was married to Carlos Mosely, the fascist leader. After the war, they lived in Ireland, finally settling in France.

Unity, so smitten with Hitler and the Nazis, moved to Germany. An unsuccessful attempt at suicide when war was declared between Germany and Britain led to her profound impairment. Her mother cared for her until she died in 1948.

Jessica became a socialist and eloped to Spain after the war there. Her first husband died in WWII. She married an American and moved to the US, where she became an active member of the Communist Party. Her writing proved successful, many of us remembering her book length investigation titled The American Way of Death.

Deborah, the youngest, remained firmly apolitical. She married into nobility, with a big family estate. She made it her business to save and restore the house and grounds, and put it on solid financial grounds. Gift shops, promotion, charging admission saved the home and were all the result of Deborah’s excellent business sense.

So the guide Joanna gave us had even a symbol for each sister, a pen for Nancy, a swastika for Unity, etc. It was so handy to consult as we heard various letters. And these letters were the intimate close missives of women who lived apart but remained close.

My favorite quote is from Deborah’s letter to the imprisoned Diana. Deborah writes just before she is to marry. “I do so wish you weren’t in prison. It will be sad not having you to go shopping with, only we are so poor I don’t have much of a trousseau…”

Deborah has two more quotes that convey some of the dottiness and charm we enjoyed at the presentation. Again, Deborah to Diana: “I expect we shall be terrifically poor, but I think how nice it will be…”

Deborah writes: “I was among the girls called up to work at some horrid job for 48 hours a week, but now I’m in pig (note, pregnant) I don’t have to do it and you know how I hate work, so it's very lucky.”

And Deborah writes to Jessica (the socialist): “Well, dear, I’ve smacked my ovary and taken it to Madame Bovary and the result is I’m in pig.”

It was a delightful afternoon!

Respectfully submitted, Laura Rice
(substituting for Christine)

The New Season Begins

 Jacquie's Email: a handwritten letter

If your screen is too small to read Jacquie’s handwriting, here’s what it says:

September 22, 2024

Dearest Literary Ladies,

Happy first day of autumn! It’s been a while since I’ve written—and even longer since we were sitting around Christine’s gorgeous pool celebrating me...* I mean for our final meeting of our fantastic, quite varied 2023/2024 season of Literature Club Topics from the Years We Were Born (or Topics That Are Inspired by That Era). Boy am I not sad to never have to write that theme title again!

And I’m so happy to be sitting on my porch, a slightly perceived nip in the air, to remind you all that we will be meeting this Wednesday, September 25th at Frances’ beautiful home. If the weather cooperates, we will be meeting outdoors at noon for our newly adopted fan favorite, not lunch! Joanna will ring the bell promptly at 1 PM for our first meeting of the 2024/25 season of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson’s LETTERS, JOURNALS AND DIARIES. (So much easier!)

As an introduction to our new theme, we ask that, if you’d like, to please bring any fun letters or journal entries from people you considered for your topic, or as a teaser of you own topic, to share with the group.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!!! 💙JACQUELINE

*We celebrated Jacquie's birthday at our summer meeting

Christine's Minutes: On our first meeting of the 2024-2025 season, thirteen members and one associate of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson met in the welcoming backyard of Frances Greenberg.

President Joanna Riesman rang the bell at precisely 1 PM. She welcomed us all back, for this Free-For-All meeting. She thanked Frances for the lovely non-lunch, which included the New York Times favorite recipe of all time, the plum tarte.

The minutes of the June meeting were read and accepted.

Our treasurer reported a treasury still unchanged, with $422.73.

Effusively thanking Frances for her technical help, Laura passed around the elegant booklets for this season. So far there are no major changes. Well, maybe a few. Connie’s presentation date was inadvertently omitted: She will present on February 26.

The plan for this first meeting, absent a specific presentation, was for members to bring in collections of letters they like, or find interesting, and read a few. A potpourri of epistolary specimens. An omnium gatherum of correspondence.

Jacquie started off the readings with Antony Sher’s Year of the King. During a junior year abroad in London, Jacquie managed to see Kenneth Branagh as Henry V, Ian McKellen as Coriolanus, and Tony Sher as Richard III. Obviously, it was a year well-spent. The sections we read presented a dialogue between Michael Gambon and Lawrence Olivier, as Gambon was auditioning for the role of Richard III; a lunch with Sher’s psychotherapist in which the character of Richard III was analyzed; and of course, discussions of whether crutches should be used to portray Richard’s “deformity,” and if not crutches, then how to represent it.

In the brief intermezzo, a Spotted Lantern Fly was successfully squashed, and there was a discussion of how few SLF’s there were this year, as compared with last year.

Christine passed around an invitation to the benefit for RTA, Rehabilitation Through the Arts. This prompted a rather extraordinary story from Sharon, who will be teaching a class on the short story in Sing Sing this year. On her first time there as an RTA volunteer, she was shadowing the director, who was doing a read through of The Exonerated, as a play they might present. Roles were handed out randomly, and Sharon’s was to read the part of Kerry Max Cook. This may seem uncanny and weird, because it is, but in Sharon’s first job as a cub reporter, she was sent to interview a death row inmate, and it was that same Kelly Max Cook.

Laura then read from Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey, in which young women travelling west wrote of their hardships, and especially of the loss of their children. It was impossible to listen without admiring the courage and resolution of these very young families.

Frances shared The Journal of the Fictive Life, by Howard Nemerov, the famous poet, and brother to Diane Arbus. He describes his struggles to write a novel. This led to a discussion of accomplished siblings, and what factors lead to the phenomenon.

Carla presented Cake by Moira Kahlman, containing remembrances of significant cakes in her life, including the birthday cake that matched her party dress. It is a lovely book.

Christine read letters from Madame de Sévigné and then Evelyn Waugh, and no, there is no connection between the two except their c-existence on Christine’s bookshelves.

We ended with a discussion of the personal letters we inherit, and what to do with them.

The movie, My Old Ass, and the play, Yellow Face, were highly recommend.

Then the threatened rain became real, and in a show of brilliant efficiency the literary ladies of Hastings ferried the food and plates back into Frances’ kitchen, fire bucket brigade-style.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Carla Presents Jamaica Kincaid

 Jacquieʼs Email Hello Literary Ladies! How is it possible that we have reached the end of our 2023-2024 season and that wonderful mouthful of a theme, “Literature Club Topics from the Years We Were Born” or “Topics That Are Inspired by That Year or Era.” And what an eclectic collection of topics and wonderful presentations we have experienced! Thank you all for sharing your topics with such love and passion. It really has been a banner season.

“I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while
I'm doing other things, which is
not a good idea.” —Jamaica Kinkaid

But I'm getting ahead of myself, as we luckily still have one more presentation! As has become our tradition, and a beloved one at that, Carla will be presenting at our final meeting of the year on “1934/35 Foreign Influence on American Literature: Jamaica Kincaid.” It should be a balmy 87 degrees on Wednesday, June 19th, so how lucky are we to be meeting around Christine's glorious pool? Coincidentally, this is where we held our first meeting of the year with Barbara Morrow presenting Rebecca West. That September 20th seems like only yesterday and also a lifetime ago. We will meet at noon for non-lunch al fresco, and Joanna will call you all out of the pool promptly at 1 pm to start our meeting.

And please indulge me for one final note on this year's topic. As I haven't let ANYONE forget, I will be celebrating my 60th birthday on June 19th and I imagine aging, nostalgia, and the passing of life's milestones was on my mind already a year ago March when I threw out the idea for this topic at our annual meeting. How glad I am that it was embraced for this year's theme and how fitting it has proven to be at this time of such great flux in our world order and uncertainty for the future. In looking back on the ideas that our Lit Club predecessors were examining, and thinking about the times they were living through, hindsight gives one hope that our era, too, will be looked upon with curiosity by those who come after us. I can only pray that they will be looking back on a time when cooler heads prevailed, and the possibility of our great democratic experiment once again proved the best instrument for working towards a more peaceful and just world. And as my beloved RuPaul Charles would say, “Can I get an amen up in here?”

I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday. I can't imagine anything I'd rather do on my birthday than spend an afternoon with you all, the inspiring members of our glorious Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson! xJacquie

Christine's Minutes In what seems to be yet another tradition, on June 19th, 2024, twelve members of the Literature Club members gathered at Christine’s pool and plunged into the water in a most literary fashion. (Sentences splashed.) A non-lunch of salads and crustless tea sandwiches was served.

The big news was that our preternaturally youthful Corresponding Secretary, Jacquie, turned sixty, on this very day. And, naturally, some of us will take any excuse for eating cake. Especially a delicious Oreo cake brought by our President.

The festivities were such that the bell was not rung until 1:16 pm.

Due to the shameless dereliction of two of our officers, there were no minutes of the previous meeting, nor was there a treasurer’s report.

There was a brief discussion of the plethora of flyers arriving in our mailboxes, full of negative political advertising, for the upcoming primaries. Much dismay was expressed.

Connie reported that 343 books were delivered to Family Social Service of Yonkers, for three separate literacy programs.

Vice-President Laura passed around the schedule for next year, in case anyone cared to name their topic.

Christine regretted the noisy helicopters traveled upstate. She regrets that she has no influence with the FAA.

Not so the case with our speaker, Carla. In the year of her birth, 1934, the topic was “Foreign Influence on American Literature.”

Carla began her program on JAMAICA KINCAID by telling us all to buckle our seatbelts, as we fly to Antigua in the West Indies, birthplace of Elaine Potter Richardson. In her air-steward persona, Carla passed around sugar-free bonbons, and described for us what we, the arriving passengers, would see. Including an airport named for the Prime Minister.

The writer we know as Jamaica Kincaid was born in 1949. She went to British schools, where she was a brilliant student, but when her third brother was born, she was forced to leave school at 16, to help support the family. She was sent to New York to work as an au pair. She got along well with the mother of the family, as she chronicles in her novel, Lucy, but she never sent home any money. She cut off all contact for the next twenty years. After her time as an au pair, she worked for a while as a photographer, and then received a full scholarship to Franconia College in New Hampshire. She dropped out after a year, returned to New York and began writing for several magazines. In 1973 she changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid. She got to know William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker, and wrote pieces for “Talk of the Town.” In 1979, Kincaid married Allen Shawn, a composer, and the boss’s son.

Most of her fiction was rather autobiographical. At the Bottom of the River, her first book, was a collection of stories set in the Caribbean, most of which had initially appeared in The New Yorker. Her first novel, Annie John, came out in 1985, describes a young girl growing up in Antigua, where a snake can lurk hidden in the basket of fruit atop her mother’s head.

Members read selections from Lucy (1990) a novel about a West Indian young woman living with a couple and their children in New York City. The author describes a first sexual experience with a delicate flippancy.

Kincaid was awarded the Pen/Faulkner Award in 1996, yet her reviews were often mixed. Some reviewers described her as overrated and bipolar, but others called her: exhilarating, compelling, unique and sublime. Michiko Kakutani wrote that she “writes with passion and conviction, and she also writes with a musical sense of language.”

We read passages from Autobiography of My Mother (1996), about a girl sent off to live with the laundress by her vain and selfish father.

In See Now Then, Kincaid dissects and excoriates the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Sweet. who live in the “Shirley Jackson house.” Based on her marriage with Allen Shawn, she does not refrain from expressing anger and pain. Their two children, named Hercules and Persephone in the book, are used as pawns between the warring parents.

Now for Something New and Different—Carla passed around Kincaid’s beautiful My Gardening (Book). Each member then randomly chose a paragraph to read aloud for our delectation. There was not a sloppy paragraph, or an un-beautiful sentence. The topics addressed ranged from Joe-Pie Weed to the evil-looking Monkshood to the relationship between gardening and conquest to Gertrude Jekyll to the fact that a garden will die with its owner.

To end our afternoon’s program, members read the short story, “Girl.” Take a series of instructions; give them to a young girl; use semi-colons to divide each instruction; keep repeating the phrase “like the slut you are bent on becoming;” tell her how to sew on a button; tell her how to cook okra; keep calling her a slut; tell the whole story of the girl’s island life in this short story that is all one sentence.

It was an enlightening program, a great way to end this season of revisiting our birth years, and a perfect start to summer.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Kathy Presents Lewis Mumford

 

Lewis Mumford

“The ultimate gift of conscious life is a sense of the mystery that encompasses it.” —Lewis Mumford

Jacquieʼs Email Hello Literary Ladies! A reminder that we will be meeting this Wednesday, June 5th at Carla's home to hear Kathy present on the intriguing theme from her birth year “1958/59 Fifty Years in the Realms of Gold (1908-1958)” for which she has chosen to present on Lewis Mumford, American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic, who, according to Wikipedia, is “particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture.” Unfamiliar with both the phrase “Realms of Gold” and the work of Lewis Mumford as I am, I will not deign to comment here but will leave it up to Kathy in her premier presentation to the Literature Club.

Carla will open her doors at noon for our now traditional and much loved not lunch, and I will have the honor of ringing the bell at 1pm to start our meeting, as both of our fearless leaders, Joanna and Laura, will be unable to attend. (I believe the birds of Iceland and a bunch of lawyers in Tivoli, NY are the attractions that draw them away—you tell me who will be having more fun...) Carla writes about coming to Greystone Apartments, “parking is tight, carpooling is bright!” The day looks like it will be a lovely one, so the walk on the OCA might also be a way to go.

I look forward to seeing many of you there! x Jacquie

Christine's Minutes On June 5th, 2024, eleven members of the Literature Club knew they had gone to the right place when they saw the sign reading: YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION, affixed to Carla’s door. Upon entering we were met with another set of exquisite Hudson River views. A delicious non-lunch, topped off with Carla’s signature clafoutis, was enjoyed by all.

In the shocking absence of both president and vice-president, Corresponding Secretary Jacquie rang the bell at exactly 1 pm.

The minutes of the previous meeting were read and accepted.

Our treasury still contains $427.73

Ideas for programs on next year’s theme -Letters and Diaries – were bandied about. Names mentioned were Kurt Vonnegut, Wilson and Nabokov, Madame Sévigné, Emily Dickinson, Vincent and Theo van Gogh. Lewis Thomas, Noel Coward, and others.

Kathy Sullivan, for her debut presentation, chose to revisit the 1958-1959 theme of “Fifty Years in the Realms of Gold” on account of 1959 being the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Literature Club. Kathy’s focus was on work of Lewis Mumford.

The theme’s title comes from “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer” by John Keats. 

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Why Lewis Mumford? Well, for one thing, while it seemed that we had all heard of him, very few of us had actually read his work or understood his importance to American culture and architecture. But this was the man who, in 1926, set out to create the first canon of American Architecture, looking back to the very beginnings of the country.

Lewis Mumford was born in 1895, in Queens. He lived through the second wave of industrialization, and nuclear war. He died peacefully in his sleep in 1990.

Members read from Mumford’s obit in The New York Times, which hailed him as a philosopher, literary critic, historian, city planner, cultural and political commentator, essayist and perspicacious writer about architecture. (Most of us are lucky to manage just one of these occupations.) Though Mumford once said that if he specialized at all, it was as a “social philosopher.” The obit also referred to his opposition to Robert Moses’s expressway systems. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986 by President Reagan.

Kathy explained that in his studies of cities, Mumford pioneered the method of studying the present condition and then looking for threads that would lead back to previous forms.

Kathy relied on The Lewis Mumford Reader, edited by Donald Miller, and well as Miller’s Lewis Mumford, A Life. She also found it useful to read from his New Yorker column, Skylines.

Mumford grew up on the West Side, went to public schools, and then entered Stuyvesant, where, Mumford recalled, “my interests widened, and my marks worsened.” He studied at City College but did not graduate. Instead, he took graduate courses at Columbia and at the New School.

After working as a radio technician in WWI, Lewis became associate editor of The Dial. His essays on housing and cities appeared there and elsewhere and began to attract attention. His first book, was The Story of Utopias, came out in 1922. In 1923 he was a co-founder of the RPA—Regional Planning Association of America (Note: back in the 1990’s, the RPA facilitated several meetings designed to help the village of Hastings on Hudson come up with a comprehensive plan for the waterfront. Alas, even the RPA could not fathom the insanity and inertia that characterizes Hastings’ waterfront.)

Meanwhile, Lewis married Sophia Wittenberg in 1921, and they lived in Sunnyside, Queens.

Members read several excerpts from Mumford’s The Golden Day: A Study in American Experience and Culture, in which Mumford makes the case for an American canon of writers: Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Melville. He argued that because they all wrote before the social changes wrought by the Civil War, they were in touch with the core of what made Americans Americans.

For the 1939 World’s Fair, Mumford wrote the script for a film—with a score by Aaron Copeland—decrying the poor state of the cities and praising suburbia. (Thirty years later he retracted that opinion and said, “the suburb was as asylum for the preservation of illusion.”) Members saw a video of that film. We also read from “The Skyway’s the Limit,” one of his New Yorker columns.

One of Mumford’s many interests was how man was served by and controlled by technology, over time. As he got older, Mumford came to believe that a life filled with easy comforts and consumer goods required a Faustian bargain.

The more we learned about Mumford, the more we realized just how complex and all-encompassing this man’s vision was.

This was a fascinating afternoon that introduced Literature Club members to a remarkable and un-classifiable writer and thinker, a great debut program from Kathy.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary