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

A Short Story Reading

Program booklet 2023–2024 with changes

Jacquie's Email Dear Literary Ladies: from our discussion at our last meeting, I know you all agree with me that this year's theme, “Literature Club Topics from the Years We Were Born or Topics That Are Inspired by That Year or Era,” has already made for a wonderful mélange of presentations. And this week's presentation looks like it will only add to the richness of this fascinating season.Taking the subtitle of our theme to heart, Constance will be presenting:“The Year of History 1959–1960” (specifically New York State for the 350th anniversary of Hudson's discovery of the river)“Redo: ‘Discovery?!?’ First Nations Beg to Differ 2023–2024.” First Nation writers, featuring Margaret Verble.

In one of our rare unchanged program dates, we will be meeting at noon on Wednesday, February 28th in Carol's lovely hillside home. Constance will ring the bell promptly at 1PM for our meeting, and then, turn the meeting over to herself for her presentation. I look forward to seeing you all there! x Jacquie

Note: was it Jacquie's email mentioning that this was one of the rare unchanged meetings?  

Another Email: Hello Literary Ladies! Unfortunately, poor Constance, today's presenter, is sick and unable to present today. We will be rescheduling her presentation.
   But we will still be meeting at Carol's at noon today. She has “lots of food—snacks only, of course” and we'll read a short story together.
   Nothing clever to add, but I'm wishing Constance a speedy recovery! x Jacquie

Christine's Minutes On the day before the quadrennial bissextile day, that is. February 28 of a Leap Year, eleven members of the Literature Club met in Carol Barkin’s lovely living room. We nibbled on a lovely spread of tasty non-lunch food. Our Vice President, Joanna Riesman, started the meeting at 1:05 (which is what happens when there is no bell), as our president, Constance, was laid low by the nasty norovirus that is plaguing these parts.

The minutes were read and accepted. There was no treasurer’s report, but it is safe to assume that our treasury remains the same.

There was more discussion, and consternation, regarding the loss of The Rivertowns Enterprise, as well as possible alternatives. Someone (?) has started a Substack, called Rivertowns Currents, which can be accessed for free on the internet, which lists upcoming events in Hastings. The Hudson Independent publishes monthly and is based in Tarrytown. Will they expand to explain the southern Rivertowns? Laura mentioned that there is also a paper called The Northern Westchester Examiner.

Members recommended various books: Monsters, by Claire Dederer; The Art Thief by Michael Finkel; Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro; Dwell Time by Rosa Lowinger; and Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo.

The movie, The Taste of Things, was highly recommended, as well as the Spanish Netflix series, Velvet.

In the absence of our scheduled presenter, Constance, we decided that we would revisit Dorothy Parker. Frances wisely chose the story “Horsie” for reading aloud. As with the stories we read last month, the story was both amusing and poignantly sad, and it sparked some interesting discussion.

The meeting ended at 2:30. We all hoped for Constance’s quick recovery so that we will be able to enjoy her program at our next meeting. 

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner
Recording Secretary