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

Lori Presents on Irish Literature

Pool at Laura's condo

Jacquieʼs Email Hello Literary Ladies! FIELD TRIP!!!! As they say, three time's a charm, so get ready to meet in Ossining at Laura Riceʼs home this Wednesday, May 15th at noon for a delicious not lunch and, I imagine, a tour of the breathtaking river views of Scarborough Manor. I've included a scan of the directions Laura handed out at our last meeting below for easy access. Please talk amongst yourselves for organizing carpools.

Joanna will ring the bell at 1pm for a quick meeting at which time Laura will pass around the sign-up sheet for our 2024-2025 meetings when our theme will be Letters, Journals, and Diaries! Lori Walsh will then give her presentation on “1967/1968 Literature Born of Rebellion: Ireland.

I'm so sad I will not be with you all at Lauraʼs, or to hear Loriʼs sure-to-be marvelous presentation, but I will be back for our next meeting at which time I will get to ring the bell as both Joanna and Laura will be unable to attend. Dreams really do come true!

Have a wonderful meeting and I look forward to seeing you all in June. x Jacquie

Christineʼs Minutes Twelve members of the Literature Club, and one guest, Catalina Danis, gathered on the ides of May at Laura Rice’s fabulous new digs in Ossining, with views south to the Tappan Zee and Hook Mountain, across the river to Rockland State Park, and north to High Tor. I would like to report that we watched as bald eagles lunched on Hudson River Shad, but that will have to await our next meeting there. Members lunched on a delicious not-lunch of Orzo salad, hummus and strawberries.

Joanna rang the bell at 1 pm, and thanked our gracious hostess, Laura, and introduced our guest.

The minutes of our previous meeting were read and accepted. The treasury remains unchanged.

Joanna announced that the library’s next speaker will be Don Chen, the ED of the Surdna Foundation. Constance requested help with the job of counting the books to be delivered to Family Services in Yonkers. Joanna volunteered to help with that. Laura passed around a sheet with dates, for members to sign up for hosting and presenting.

A toast was proposed to the late, great Alice Munro, who died 2 days earlier at the age of 92.

Then while clouds massed over Verdietege Hook, we settled in to learn more of Irish history that ever before was imparted in a single afternoon.

Lori, born in 1967, chose to follow the 1967-1968 theme of “Literature Born of Rebellion.” She cited two books that signified in her research: Edna O’Brien’s House of Splendid Isolation, and Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say No: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.

For the last 7000 years, Ireland has existed as a distinct Celt (or Gaelic) entity, with its language and culture, and religion. But for the last 800 years, it has been in conflict with Great Britain. In other words, the early 20th century rebellion and the more recent ‘Troubles’ follow directly from the prior centuries of British domination and persecution.

And so, with very un-Irish conciseness, the history: the island was settled by the Celts, or Gaels, around 600 BCE. In the fifth century, CE, Saint Patrick arrived, Christianized the population, made mention of the shamrock, and banished the snakes. The Vikings came in the 9th and 10th centuries, trading along the coast, and founding Dublin. The trouble began with the Anglo-Norman invasion in the twelfth century, under Henry II of England. They began by dismantling the ancient Gaelic traditions of land usage, and established feudalism. By 1541, the English controlled the entire island, and Henry VIII declared himself King of Ireland. After wresting land from the Gaelic clans, the king, and then his daughter Mary, encouraged English settlement. Charles I, in need of money, aggressively extracted wealth from the country. This got worse in Cromwellian times: more land was confiscated, and poor farmers were shipped to the West Indies as slaves. And then, yes, it got worse with the forced anglicization of Ireland. Their ancient language was suppressed and ultimately banned, the people became tenants on their former lands and the ancient social order of clans was destroyed. By the 18th century, Catholics were excluded from government. This meant that in 1798, the Irish Parliament—composed entirely of Protestants—was able to vote itself out of existence, so that Ireland would become part of the United Kingdom and be ruled directly from London.

Over the next hundred years, certain men and groups who led the fights against British domination became the heroes and martyrs whose names are still known and revered: Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, the Young Irelanders, the Fenians, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, things just got worse for the Irish. In 1841, more than 8 million people lived in Ireland, and most of them were poor farmers, growing a single crop, potatoes. When the potato blight came in 1845 and again in 1846, starvation ensued. The Whig government in London used their newly adopted laissez-faire capitalism to justify their refusal of any help, while still forcing the exportation of other food to Britain. There were countless evictions. Over a million died in the famine, and over four million would emigrate over the next decade. British policy during the famine solidified the Irish resentment and belief in the need for independence.

Yet, it was not until 1996 that a British PM, Tony Blair, expressed the slightest regret for the British culpability in the famine.

There was a brief musical interlude, when we listened to Sinead O’Connor singing “Revenge for Skibbereen,” a ballad in the form of a dialogue between father and son about the suffering of the Irish in the Great Famine.

The Irish immigrants in America and elsewhere, soon began sending financial support for Irish independence.

Parliament’s Land Act of 1903 allowed for a rise in the (previously non-existent) Irish Catholic middle class, the revival of the Irish language, and small independent farmers. In Catholic schools, the glory taught of their Gaelic past was taught alongside the terrors of Hell and Damnation. Irish literature, often with old Gaelic themes, gave rise increasing nationalism, and the desire for Home Rule.

After many attempts, the Home Rule Bill was passed in 1912 and set to be implemented in 1914. Then came WWI, and Home Rule was suspended while the British wanted the Irish to fight with them in Europe. This was not popular.

On Easter Monday of 1916, the Irish Volunteers and the IRA seized several buildings in Dublin, including the General Post Office, where Patrick Pearse stood in the doorway, under the Irish tricolor, and read out the proclamation of the Republic of Ireland.

Terrible reprisals ensued. A British gunboat sailed up the Liffey and laid waste to the center of Dublin. They arrested countless men, and executed sixteen of the Irish leaders, creating instant heroes and martyrs.

Members read selections from …_________________ about the armed struggle. There were strong responses to the British barbarity. George Bernard Shaw denounced the executions, and the Catholic bishops spoke out, and finally gave their full support to the nationalists. W.B. Yeats wrote one of his greatest poems, “Easter, 1916.” 

After the war, a general election was held. In Ulster, in the north, the Protestant unionist vote won, while everywhere else Sinn Fein won overwhelmingly. The Sinn Fein delegates refused to go to Westminster and created Ireland’s own assembly—Dail Eireann—where they met in Dublin on January 21, 1919.

The re-constructed IRA continued to fight the British crown, and in response, the British sent in the Black and Tans. Partition came in May 1921, with Protestant Northern Ireland continuing as a British colony. However, minority populations remained in both the north and the south. The northern Catholics were especially vulnerable to discrimination and violence, a situation that lasted until very recently, with ‘The Troubles.’ The struggle in the south continued until the creation of the Republic of Ireland in 1949.

And onto the great Literature Born of Rebellion.

Members read from Brendan Behan’s Borstal Boy (1958).

Then we read several poems by William Butler Yeats: “Easter, 1916; Sixteen Dead Men; On a Political Prisoner; The Rose Tree.” 

Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

 Those famous last lines from “Easter, 1916,” continue to be emblematic of the Irish bravery and the Irish struggle.

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. We read selections from his novel A Star Called Henry, about a young boy who becomes an IRA volunteer and fights on Easter Monday 1916. We hear about the scene at the General Post Office from the point of view of Henry.

There was, alas, no time for Frank O’Connor or Sean O’Casey. But there is never enough time for all the great Irish literature we would like to read. Thanks to Lori, who then sped home and flew off to Dublin in the evening.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Gita Presents Henry Miller

Henry Miller

Jacquieʼs Email Dearest Literary Ladies, With the little I know about Henry Miller, it seems apropos that this May Day, the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be meeting to hear Gita present: “1934: The Year Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer Was Published.”

We will be meeting at noon on Wednesday, May 1st at Constance's charming home. The highly popular Lit Club Not Lunch will be served. Joanna will ring the bell promptly at 1pm to begin our meeting.

At the moment it looks like it will be a beautiful day, so those who will be walking to avoid the tight parking around the high school will have a lovely time of it. Constance says you are welcome to park in her driveway. I hope to see many of you there! x Jacquie

Christine's Minutes Fourteen members of the Literature Club–as well as Gita’s daughter, Ilse Willems, flown in from Paris for just this event–gathered in Connie’s living room. A not-lunch, that did not include Connie’s famous poached salmon, was enjoyed by all. (Though there was smoked salmon, lest anyone go home in despair.)

Our President, Joanna, rang the bell at precisely 1 pm, and thanked our gracious host. Vice-President Laura passed out copies of her doctoral dissertation (said to be in the style of Henry James)–either that, or those pages comprised the directions to her home in Ossining, famous for its views. In the spirit of E.B. White, Linda simplified: drive north, then turn left.

Our treasurer reported that we currently have $422.73.

Joanna reminded us that the library’s annual gala will be held on June 9th, from 5:30 to 8pm. The theme will be “Songs that Tell a Story.”

Lori, in her capacity as head of the Hastings Youth Council, told us about her youth group’s plan to do something intergenerational, specifically to engage with senior citizens (a demographic to which some of us qualify). They have had one successful event and would like to do another in June.

Christine related a recent news item about the theft of numerous first editions of Pushkin from libraries all over Europe.

The minutes of the previous meeting were read and accepted.

Onward to Gita’s riveting presentation on Henry Miller, a writer we all know about, but few have actually read. This was about to change. In the spirit of full disclosure, Gita told us that if you read the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn, you will likely come away thinking that the world is about to end, that all men are horrid alcoholics, and all women are prostitutes. To set the mood, Gita read us a section from the Tropic of Cancer, describing Olga, a prostitute with warts and halitosis.

However, Henry Miller was greatly admired by young writers; they were drawn to his complex prose, his character studies, his surrealism and mysticism, his use of stream of consciousness and explicit language.

It was 1934, and our Gita was born in Latvia, while Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer was published in Paris. It would be banned in the US for the next twenty years; but it was frequently stolen from libraries. (Miller and Pushkin have this in common.) To the dismay of those of us with prurient minds, Gita announced that, in our assigned readings, she would be skipping the sexual passages and focusing on passages revealing Miller’s bipolar personality.

Although Cancer was the first to be published, Capricorn comes first, chronologically, when seen as his autobiography. Thus, Gita began our readings with the Tropic of Capricorn.

Miller on himself: “I was a philosopher while still in swaddling clothes.”

Members read a wide array of selections, dealing with topics such as his Christmas birth, his father the Congregationalist deacon, Dostoyevsky, how Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn is like Dante’s vision of hell, his shame when a Black man doffs his cap to him, Strindberg, and Babylonian whores.

From the Tropic of Cancer, we read passages about Miller’s time living at the Villa Borghese, his friends Boris and Carl, his decision not to seek perfection, his view of Paris as an artificial revolving stage, Germaine the whore, the therapeutic effects of proofreading, his “menagerie of a brain pan,” the idea of America, and returning to America.

Only once we were well-acquainted with his writing, did Gita give us a brief (and perhaps sanitized) view of his life. Henry Miller was born on December 26, 1891, to German-Lutheran parents. They lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In 1924 he worked at Western Union in NY, while he struggled to become a writer. In 1930 he moved to Paris, where he would write his two great novels. He became friends with many surrealists. He returned to the US in 1940 and settled in Big Sur, California. He was married five times and had three children. At the age of eighty he published a collection of essays. In 1973 he was nominated for the Nobel in Literature. He died in 1980 in Pacific Palisades.

Members all expressed their delight at getting to know the work of Henry Miller, all in one lovely afternoon.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Laura Presents Martha Gelhorn

Martha Gelhorn, Sun Valley, 1940

Jacquieʼs Email: Hello Literary Ladies! With the weather report looking iffy, our plan for our next meeting on Wednesday, April 17th, is to play it a bit by ear depending on the actual weather. At the moment, we will either be OUTSIDE in Joanna’s spring-fresh garden or INSIDE in her work-site chic home. Laura Rice will be presenting on 1947/1948 Selections from American Literature of the 20th Century: Martha Gelhorn. What will Laura provide for theme-dress-up this time? Pearls and fatigues?

Joanna’s gate off the Old Croton Aqueduct will be open at noon on the 17th, and she will ring the bell promptly at 1pm. (Actually, her gate is always open, and you are certainly welcome to enter by her driveway, I just liked the way that sounded.) She also asked that you please enter the house through her garden (kitchen) and not the driveway (front door), adding, “Not to be too risqué, but I'll be happy to show you my exposed joists afterwards.” So much to look forward to!

If it's looking sunny and you think we might be spending a little bit of time outdoors, please bring layers and hats, as you see fit. A light not-lunch will be served.

Hoping to see most of you on Wednesday, and fingers crossed for a beautifully sunny day on Wednesday!–x Jacquie

P.S. Please excuse the silly tone of this reminder. The morning sun and the fact that we are not at all-out war in the Middle East is making me a bit giddy.

Christineʼs Minutes Fourteen members of the Literature, and one guest–Linda’s daughter Rebecca–gathered in Joanna’s lovely kitchen, which allowed for better-than-usual proximity to the source of food.

Joanna rang the bell at precisely 1 pm, and made an apt analogy between our somewhat cramped quarters in the kitchen, and the exigencies of war correspondence.

Lori, our treasurer, reported that coffers are full to bursting with $422.73. Though a check will soon be written, for $16.00 to the Barkin Corner Book Shop, for books that will be delivered to the Family Social Services of Yonkers.

The minutes for March 13th were read and accepted.

The minutes for March 27th were also read and accepted.

Our Vice-President, Laura Rice, handed out a list of possible topics for next year’s theme, and asked us to circle five that we would like to see in the final ballot.

Then, putting on her presenter hat, Laura launched her program on Martha Gellhorn. Born in 1947, one of the themes Laura could choose from, was “American Literature of the Past 25 Years.” Meanwhile, she had also read the novel, The Paris Wife, about Hemingway’s first wife. And had come across the work of Martha Gellhorn. A topic was born. Martha Gellhorn however was not the subject of The Paris Wife; she was Hemingway’s third, penultimate wife. But quoi faire? Our speaker had already fallen for Gellhorn, through her collection of letters from the thirties and forties. Laura focused her report on the years 1930 to 1949.

But first a quick timeline of her life.

Martha was born in 1908 in St Louis. Her mother was a suffragette, and her father was a gynecologist. Moving right along, in 1929 she left Bryn Mawr after her junior year, and began working as a fact checker for The New Republic in New York. That was followed by other jobs in newspapers and ad agencies. While at the Albany Times Union, she met Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the governor, Franklin. Mostly importantly, on Bastille Day of 1930, she met the very French and sexy Bertrand de Jouvenal. His father, Henri, a member of the old French nobility, had divorced Bertrand’s mother in order to marry Colette. Yes, that mononymic Colette. As a teenager, Bertrand had an affair with his step-mother. Martha fell head over heels for him. But in 1931 she returned to the Midwest to get an abortion. Bertrand could not marry her, because his wife refused to allow a divorce.

Between 1931 and 1933, Martha traveled throughout the United States with Bertrand, taking odd jobs as they went along. In 1934 she worked for FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration), reporting on the state of unemployment; but she was fired in 1935 for inciting a riot by unemployed workers in Idaho. Later that year she stayed at the White House, at the invitation of Eleanor Roosevelt, and there she met H.G. Wells. The following year she stayed with Wells in London. Later in 1936, she traveled to Key West with her now-widowed mother and a brother, and there she met Ernest Hemingway. The year1937 found Martha reporting from Spain, working on the documentary The Spanish Earth. In the following years she traveled between Europe and Cuba, and in 1940 she and Hemingway married, one day after his divorce from Pauline Pfeiffer. There were more travels, of course. In 1944, she took a slow boat to England, and went on to cover the Normandy Invasion. She visited Dachau in 1945. In December of that year, she divorced Hemingway. In 1949 she adopted a boy from an Italian orphanage. Five years later she married Tom Matthews in London. They divorced in 1963. In 1966 she reported from Vietnam. But her health was declining, and in 1970 she bought a flat in London. She died by suicide in 1998, at the age of 89.

Next, in pursuit of listener participation and interactive-learning, Laura handed out selections from Martha’s letters. Each member was to pair up with her neighbor, read the selections, and then share with the group certain points they found especially interesting.

The first selection was a letter describing her fateful meeting with Bertrand de Jouvenal, the Adonis. In a later letter, also regarding Bertrand, she writes how work can heal the wounds of unhappy love. In a 1931 letter from Mexico, Martha spoke of meeting and conversing with Diego Riviera. In 1935, we heard her deliver an ultimatum to Bertrand. There was also a letter from H.G. Wells, expressing his admiration for her. There were several letters, in 1934 and 35, written to Harry Hopkins of FERA, describing her despair for the unemployed, and her concern that the ‘dole’ was pauperizing the poor.

Then in 1941, suffering from a hangover, she writes to her dear friend, Hortense Flexner, called Teechie, about her desire for both excitement AND solitude. She laments the condition of womanhood. In 1944, also writing to Teechie, Martha describes icebergs as well as her breakup with Hemingway.

Following upon the letters, Laura read us Martha’s only work of fiction, from 1931, a heart-rending story of a young woman getting an abortion. It required no great imagination to conceive of a similar story occurring right now.

In the thirties Martha spent a lot of time in Spain, reporting on the Civil War there. In 1941 she went to China, on assignment from Collier’s, bringing along Ernest, who is referred to in her letters as U.C., for Unwilling Companion. She was able to interview Chiang Kai-shek, and even asked Madame Chiang Kai-shek about the Chinese treatment of lepers. We did not hear the response. Martha also met Zhou Enlai and thought him “the best of China”. Her writing consistently showed great attention to detail, and empathy.

After the war years, Martha continued to report from all over the troubled spots of the world, Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Israel.

Laura ended with the closing paragraph of Gellhorn’s Travels with Myself and Another. It was a vivid and very moving program, of great interest to all.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Linda Presents E.B.White

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”–Wilbur in Charlotte's Web

Jacquie's Email Hello Literary Ladies! Just a reminder that we will be meeting this Wednesday, April 3rd at noon in Barbara Morrow's divine hilltop home. Linda Tucker will be presenting on 1946/1947 Selections from American Literature of the Past 25 Years: E.B. White.
    Unfortunately, the weather report calls for rain, but I imagine we will all feel cozily ensconced in Barbara's warm, yellow living room which will surely buoy all our hopes and dreams for these April showers. We will begin to gather at noon. Our newly elected club president, Joanna “I will only be a dictator on the first day” Riesman, will ring the bell for the first time in her tenure quite promptly, I'm sure, at 1pm, to begin our meeting.

Diana's Minutes (substituting for Christine) Ten members of the Literature Club gathered in Barbara Morrow’s comfortable living room, warmed by the fire while listening to chilly rain and raging wind outside. Barbara served a delicious spread, including an assortment of cheeses, Middle Eastern dips and pita chips, nuts, dried fruit, and a tray of lovely sweets.

Our new president, Joanna Riesman, rang the bell promptly at 1pm, and she thanked outgoing president Constance Stewart for leading us through two challenging years. As Jacquie said so eloquently in her email, “Constance dealt with the complicated topsy-turvy era of uncertainty, constantly re-visiting the questions: In-person or not? The library or someone's home? To mask or not to mask? To lunch or merely to snack? Hamlet had nothing on Constance!”

The minutes of the last meeting were not available, as our secretary, Christine Lehner, was cavorting among the mountains, volcanoes and beaches of Costa Rica. We did not have a Treasurer’s report, as our treasurer, Lori Walsh, was also away, in Morocco.

We had a brief discussion of several topics: Jacquie mentioned that the play telling her father’s story about being saved from the Holocaust in the Philippines is currently being produced in Los Angeles. Joanna announced that the Friends of the Library Annual Gala this year will be Sunday, June 9th, and will once again have a stellar entertainment line-up of local Broadway talent. We also discussed the upcoming eclipse next Monday (April 8); two Lit Club members (Laura Rice and Diana Jaeger) are traveling upstate to experience the area of totality.

Laura handed out a list of topics under consideration for our next year’s theme. At the next meeting, we will have a preliminary vote to narrow down the list before the final vote in May.

Our presenter, Linda Tucker, had the theme of “Selections from American Literature of the Past Twenty-five Years,” meaning the 25 years prior to 1946. Fortunately, one of the names on the Lit Club list appealed to her: E.B. White. Having written grammar books in the past, Linda figured that The Elements of Style is probably the closest she’ll ever find as a grammar book suitable for a Lit Club presentation. She structured her presentation into three parts: the essays, the children’s books, and, finally, The Elements of Style.

Elwyn Brooks White was born on July 11, 1899, in a fashionable section of Mt. Vernon, NY. He was the youngest of 6 children. E.B. was not a confident child: he said, “As a child I was frightened but not unhappy.” He loved being with animals.

He never liked the name Elwyn, and when he went to Cornell University, he was happy to acquire the name “Andy.” (Cornell students with the last name White were called Andy to honor Andrew Dickson White, a co-founder of the university.) The name Andy stuck. He published his work using the initials E.B. rather than the name Elwyn.

At Cornell he did well in courses that interested him and not so well in courses that didn’t. The course he took with William Strunk interested him a great deal. He still suffered from a lack of confidence, and the traits he exhibited at Cornel –wanting to do only what he wanted to do and greatly valuing his freedom, followed him through much of his life. So did his fears, but they morphed into a chronic distress of unspecific anxiety.

After graduation, Andy traveled to the West Coast and had several jobs over a period of 3 years, including working on an Alaskan fireboat as well as jobs writing, including at an advertising agency. He returned to the East, and in 1925, after The New Yorker was founded, he began submitting manuscripts. He was offered a job, but in his normal “I do what I want when I want to” way, it took a long time for him to sign on, and he agreed to work in the office only on Thursdays. (Kind of ahead of his time, insisting on “remote work.”)

After finding it difficult to commit to any girlfriends, Andy finally found happiness in a relationship at age 30: he had an affair with the New Yorker’s (married) literary editor, Katharine Angell; she divorced her husband and Andy and Katharine married in 1929. They had one son together, Joel. A bonus of his marriage was that E.B. (Andy) became stepfather to Katharine’s sons, one of whom, Roger Angell, became a major New Yorker writer and is known for his talents in writing about American baseball.

Andy and Katharine lived in New York City apartments and owned a farm in Maine, where Andy was always happier. They eventually settled in Maine. Both Andy and Katharine had health problems, both physical and mental. They had a good income, but they had a lot of expenses, including a large staff: a housekeeper, a cook, gardeners, and eventually, nurses and caretakers, and Andy worried about money.

Andy wrote for The New Yorker for 60 years (1925- 1976). He was known for his essays, his unsigned Notes and Comments, and Newsbreaks (the little blurbs at the end of articles, often based on quotes from newspaper articles). He wrote over 30,000 Newsbreaks. Andy kept writing for The New Yorker  for six decades, mostly because he was worried about money.

As we know, writing well is not easy, and E.B. White did not consider writing easy. In fact, he struggled to perfect each piece he wrote. He said, “I find NOT writing very soothing, but I haven’t figured out yet what I will use for money.” White’s essays have an eloquent, unaffected prose style, and were often quite funny. Linda’s Lit Club subject last year, Stephen Sondheim, said E.B. White was one of his favorite writers because of White believed strongly that “less is more.”

In the late 1930s, E.B. tried writing children’s books in addition to his work at The New Yorker. He was afraid he wouldn’t live long and wanted to provide more money for Katharine. His first children’s book, Stuart Little, was published in 1945 and was very successful; but even that did not help Andy’s depression. Charlotte’s Web, one of the most popular children’s books ever, was published in 1952. He wrote The Trumpet of the Swan in 1970; he may have written it solely for the money.

William Strunk’s Elements of Style was first used at Cornell University and was known simply as “the little book.” When E.B. White wrote an essay about “the little book” and MacMillan promptly called him to revise Strunk’s book. White’s essay is now one of the chapters in the Strunk and White book, and White’s stepson, Roger Angell, wrote an eloquent foreword to the 4th edition of the book.

Andy and Katharine’s later years were marked by continual illness. Katharine remained mentally sharp but was ill for the last twenty years of her life. She died in 1977 (age 84). Andy developed Alzheimer’s and died in 1985 (age 86).

We read selections from The Essays of E.B. White, two of his children’s books, Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, and finally from The Elements of Style.

Respectfully submitted,
Diana Jaeger (substituting for Christine)

Annual Meeting: Constance Presents and Presides; Joanna Takes the Bell

Hello Literary Ladies!!! So as not to jinx any aspect of our upcoming meeting, I will make this brief. (Please make note of the slight change of scheduling.)

The next meeting of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be held this Wednesday, March 13th at Frances’ beautiful home. Frances will welcome us all at noon for a large snack, but we will begin our regularly scheduled Annual Meeting at 12:30 PM, so that Constance has time for her presentation, “1959/1960 The Year of History” (Spec. New York State for the 350th Anniversary of Hudson's Discovery of the River) – 2023/2024 “Redo: ‘Discovery?!’ First Nations Beg to Differ: First Nation Writers,” featuring Margaret Verble* which will begin shortly after 1 PM.

Please come prepared to discuss potential themes to consider for next year. For those of you who are unable to make it before 1pm, feel free to send Constance your thoughts prior to our meeting and she will present them to the group.

I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday. The weather report is predicting 67 degrees and sunny! x Jacquie

*I won't comment on the fact that I had to type that complex title twice. I just won't!

Christine's Minutes On March 13th, whilst honeybees lured out by the warm weather buzzed hungrily around Frances’ rhododendrons, fifteen members of the Literature Club gathered inside, in the lovely double-decker living room.

President Constance rang the bell at 12:30 PM, to allow time for the business of our annual meeting, as well as Connie’s program. She thanked Frances for her gracious hospitality and delicious selection of nibblies.

The minutes of the previous meeting were read and accepted.

Our treasury is about to swell, as Lori collected from members our annual dues of a whopping $20.

To great acclaim and delight, the Nominating Committee announced our slate for President and Vice-President for the two-year term of March 2024 to March 2026: Joanna Riesman for President and Laura Rice for Vice. With appropriate ceremony, the Bell was handed over to Joanna.

As for the Annual Meeting, Linda raised the salient question: what is the difference between snacks and lunches? Should we or should we not eat lunch before the meeting?? Connie pointed out that for a first time since pre-Covid, Frances has placed identifying labels for the food. She called this: “a process towards normalization.”

Connie read the list of topics that was our starting point last year, and as ever, members suggested other topics, and definitions.

Connie began her program by situating us: we are sitting atop land that was the traditional territory of the Wappinger people, who were a spinoff from the Lenape, who were members of the Algonquin tribe.

The Literature Club’s theme for 1959-1960 (Connie was born in 1959) was titled: “The Year of History. Specifically, New York State–for the 350th Anniversary of Hudson’s Discovery of the River.” Not surprisingly, Connie reacted strongly to the use of the word “discovery” and decided then and there to present a program on an indigenous American writer.

Serendipitously, last year’s winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction, was Ned Blackhawk’s The Rediscovery of American: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History. Our first reading, from Blackhawk’s book, began with a visceral question: how can a country built on stolen land (with stolen labor) be the world’s greatest democracy?

The indigenous writer Connie chose to read was Margaret Verble, and she showed us an interview with the writer on Cherokee TV. Verble is a voting member of the Cherokee Nation. In the interview she explained why she writes historical fiction: because she enjoys reading literary fiction, and because she realizes that she has been taught the history of Native Americans incorrectly, and because she saw a need for a “historical perspective.” Well-written. She also spoke of wanting to write the stories of people who, for a variety of reasons, have not been able to speak for themselves.

Verble has written four novels Maud’s Line (2015), Cherokee America (2019), When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky (2021), Stealing (2023). Her first novel, Maud’s Line, set in 1929, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Despite that, Cherokee America, set in the 1870’s, was rejected 92 times before Houghton Mifflin accepted it.

Members read an excerpt from The New York Times’ review of Cherokee America, by Melissa Leonhardt.

The main character in Cherokee America is Check, a widow descended from Cherokees who survived the horrific Trail of Tears, the forced displacement of 100,000 Native Americans by Andrew Jackson’s “Indian Removal Act.” The plot is complex, with a large cast of characters. One central theme is the question of sovereignty in the Indian Nation. Members read short passages from the novel, and met Dennis Bushyhead.

On to Maud’s Line. This novel is centered on a single character, Maud, in the 1920’s, when Cherokee women had more property rights than white women in the US. The landscape of the book is Verble’s family land in Oklahoma, where snakes are a fact of life. In our readings we met Maud’s father, Mustard, her brother Lovely, and Booker, the schoolteacher/peddler. Connie noted that most of Verble’s female protagonists are married to white men, who are often portrayed more positively than are native men, who are often drinkers and fighters. In many cases, native women have married white men in order to ensure that their children are not taken away from them.

In readings from Blackhawk’s book, we learn more about the terrible policy of taking native children from their families and placing them in boarding schools, where their own languages were forbidden and the goal was complete assimilation. As recently as 1928, 40% of native children were being forcibly institutionalized.

Verble’s latest book, Stealing, came out in 2023. The engaging narrator, nine-year-old Kit Crockett, is the daughter of a Cherokee mother who died of TB and a supposed descendent of Davy Crockett. As the story unfolds, the reader realizes that the narrator is at a Christian boarding school, and then discovers how she came to be there. In these horrible circumstances, it is Kit’s avid reading, and her need to write that save her.

Connie then brought us back to our own Hudson Valley, once home to about 60,000 indigenous people. By 1825, there were exactly 125 natives living here. It is far too easy to draw the obvious conclusions. We were introduced to Kay Walkingstick, an 88-year-old painter of Cherokee descent. Many of her landscapes of the Hudson River are currently being shown at the New-York Historical Society on Central Park West, in a show juxtaposing Hudson River School paintings with Walkingstick’s paintings, overlaying the work with indigenous symbols.

I will end with a quote from Walkingstick: “They were selling the American landscape as empty, and of course it was not empty; it was populated. I think of [my paintings] as a reminder that we are all living in Indian Territory.”

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary