January 10, 2013 In Memoriam In Memoriam: Evan S. Connell, 1924–2013 By Lorin Stein We are sad to learn that Evan Connell has died. An early contributor to The Paris Review, Connell was and is a quiet hero of contemporary literature. His novels Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge have been cited as a crucial influence by writers as different as Lydia Davis, Jonathan Franzen, and Zadie Smith. In his history books—Son of the Morning Star (about General Custer) and Deus Lo Volt! (about the Crusades)—his poems, and his essays, he sang the glories of lost civilizations and unearthed the ruins at our feet. Connell delighted in tales of folly, of doomed experiments, but his own experiments bore fruits, plural, for no two are alike. We regret that Connell was unable to finish his Art of Fiction interview for the magazine; stay tuned in the next few days for selections from his work as it appeared in The Paris Review.
January 9, 2013 In Memoriam In Memoriam: Harvey Shapiro, 1924–2013 By Sadie Stein Harvey Shapiro, poet and editor, died on Monday at eighty-eight. The following ran in The Paris Review No. 84, Summer 1982. On A Sunday When you write something you want it to live— you have that obligation, to give it a start in life. Virginia Woolf, pockets full of stones, sinks into the sad river that surrounds us daily. Everything about London amazed her, the shapes and sight, the conversations on a bus. At the end of her life, she said London is my patriotism. I feel that about New York. Would Frank O’Hara say Virginia Woolf, get up? No, but images from her novels stay in my head—the old poet (Swinburne, I suppose) sits on the lawn of the countryhouse, mumbling into the sun. Pleased with the images, I won’t let the chaos of my life overwhelm me. There is the City, and the sun blazes on Central Park in September. These people on a Sunday are beautiful, various. And the poor among them make me think the experience I knew will be relived again, so that my sentences will keep hold of reality, for a while at least.
December 11, 2012 In Memoriam Fyodor Khitruk, 1917–2012 By Sadie Stein The pioneering Russian animator Fyodor Khitruk has died at age ninety-five. Perhaps best known for his adaptations of A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories, Khitru’s work was often political and avant-garde. 1973’s Island, below, won the Palme d’Or for best short.
November 13, 2012 In Memoriam Jack Gilbert, 1925–2012 By Sadie Stein “Being alive is so extraordinary I don’t know why people limit it to riches, pride, security—all of those things life is built on. People miss so much because they want money and comfort and pride, a house and a job to pay for the house. And they have to get a car. You can’t see anything from a car. It’s moving too fast. People take vacations. That’s their reward—the vacation. Why not the life?” —The Art of Poetry No. 91
November 12, 2012 In Memoriam T. S. Eliot’s Widow Dies at Eighty-Six By Sadie Stein My father is inordinately fond of pointing out our place in the course of history. “Just think about it!” he would say intensely almost every morning of my childhood, as he scanned the obit pages over breakfast. “This man was born during the Taft presidency! Twice his lifetime was the Pierce presidency! It’s amazing! It’s so recent!” I was reminded of this when I read the news that T. S. Eliot’s widow had died, this Friday, at eighty-six. Of course, it’s not as though Valerie Eliot were some sort of secret: Eliot’s executor, she guarded her husband’s legacy since his death, periodically editing and releasing his work, fiercely guarding his privacy, allowing for the making of Cats, and using the money from that success to start a charitable trust. And considering the difference in their ages—Eliot was thirty-eight years older than his second wife, whom he married in 1957—her relative youth is no shocker either. But hers was, for the most part, a quiet and unobtrusive stewardship (she avoided interviews), and those are themselves rare things these days. She said that their relationship was a quiet one, involving much Scrabble-playing and cheese-eating. As she said in a rare interview, “He obviously needed a happy marriage. He wouldn’t die until he’d had it.”
August 29, 2012 In Memoriam In Memory of Daryl Hine By Sadie Stein We were saddened to learn of the death of Daryl Hine last week at the age of seventy-six. Over the years, his work appeared with regularity in our pages, and his voice will be greatly missed. The following poem appeared in issue 155. A Rebours Time’s one-way traffic won’t reverseSummer’s sentimental courseOr force the headlong universePerversely backwards to its source. Reverting to the title pageCannot erase a book once read;What echo of a golden ageGilds an eternity of lead? All the spontaneous happeningsOf the erotic pantomime.Precipitate, straightforward loversIntimate that certain thingsAre irreversible as time. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]