Il 6 marzo James Norton ha partecipato ad una delle serate di Letters Live, l'iniziativa che vede attori importanti impegnarsi nella lettura di lettere particolarmente interessanti davanti ad un pubblico reale.
In particolare, James ha letto due brani molto diversi fra loro: la commovente lettera scritta dal poeta Edward Thomas alla moglie, dal fronte francese, tre giorni prima di morire, e la risposta scritta da Ezra Pound alle critiche rivolte a A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, il primo romanzo di James Joyce.
Edward Thomas
Beaurains
6 April 1917
There wasn’t a letter . . . but I will add a little more.—the pace is slackening today.
Still not a thrush—but many blackbirds.
My dear, you must not ask me to say much more. I know that you must say much more because you feel much. But I, you see, must not feel anything. I am just as it were tunnelling underground and something sensible in my subconsciousness directs me not to think of the sun. At the end of the tunnel there is the sun. Honestly this is not the result of thinking; it is just an explanation of my state of mind which is really so entirely preoccupied with getting on through the tunnel that you might say I had forgotten there was a sun at either end, before or after this business. This will perhaps induce you to call me inhuman like the newspapers, just because for a time I have had my ears stopped—mind you I have not done it myself—to all but distant echoes of home and friends and England. If I could respond as you would like me to to your feelings I should be unable to go on with this job in ignorance whether it is to last weeks or months or years…
We have such fine moonlight nights now, pale hazy moonlight. Yesterday too we had a coloured sunset lingering in the sky and after that at intervals a bright brassy glare where they were burning waste cartridges. The sky of course winks with broad flashes almost all round at night and the air sags and flaps all night.
I expect there will be a letter today. Never think I can do without one any more than you can dearest. Kiss the children for me.
All and always yours
Edwy
Ezra Pound
30 January 1916
Stone Cottage, Coleman's Hatch, Sussex
Dear Mr Pinker:
I have read the effusion of Mr Duckworth's reader with no inconsiderable disgust. These vermin crawl over and be-slime our literature with their pulings, and nothing but the day of judgement can, I suppose, exterminate 'em. Thank god one need not [longhand: under ordinary circumstances] touch them.
Hark to his puling squeek. Too "unconventional". What in hell do we want but some change from the unbearable monotony of the weekly six shilling pears soap annual novel. [longhand: and the George Robey-Gaby mixture]
"Carelessly written", this of the sole, or almost sole piece of contemporary prose that one can enjoy sentence by sentence and re-read with pleasure. (I except Fred. Manning's "Scenes and Portraits" (pub. Murray, 1910.)
It is with difficulty that I manage to write to you at all on being presented with the Duckworthian muck, the dungminded dungbeared, penny a line, please the mediocre-at-all-cost doctrine. You English will get no prose till you exterminate this breed.....
to say nothing of the abominable insolence of the tone.
I certainly will have nothing to do with the matter. The Egoist was willing to publish the volume, Lane would have read it while ago.
I must repeat my former offer, if this louse will specify exactly what verbal changes he wants made I will approach Joyce in the matter. But I most emphatically will not forward the insults of an imbecile to one of the very few men for whom I have the faintest respect.
Canting, supercilious, blockhead.... I always supposed from report that Duckworth was an educated man, but I can not reconcile this opinion with his retention of the author of the missive you send me.
If you have to spend your life in contact with such minds, Gold help you, and do accept my good will and sympathy in spite of the tone of this note.
God! "a more finished piece of work".
Really, Mr Pinker, it is too insulting, even to be forwarded to Joyce's friend, let alone to Joyce.
And the end... also found fault with... again, oh God, o Montreal... Why can't you send the publishers readers to the serbian front and get some good out of the war..
Serious writers will certainly give up the use of English altogether unless you can improve the process of publication.
In conlusion. You have give me a very unpleasant quarter of an hour, my disgust flows over, though I suppose there is no use in spreading it over this paper. If there is any phrase or form of contempt that you care to convey from me to the reeking Malebolge of the Duckworthian slum, pray, consider yourself at liberty to draw on my account (unlimited credit) and transmit it.
Please, if you have occasion to write again, either in regard to this book or any other. Please do not enclose plublisher's readers opinions.
Sincerely yours
Ezra Pound
Edward Thomas
Beaurains
6 April 1917
There wasn’t a letter . . . but I will add a little more.—the pace is slackening today.
Still not a thrush—but many blackbirds.
My dear, you must not ask me to say much more. I know that you must say much more because you feel much. But I, you see, must not feel anything. I am just as it were tunnelling underground and something sensible in my subconsciousness directs me not to think of the sun. At the end of the tunnel there is the sun. Honestly this is not the result of thinking; it is just an explanation of my state of mind which is really so entirely preoccupied with getting on through the tunnel that you might say I had forgotten there was a sun at either end, before or after this business. This will perhaps induce you to call me inhuman like the newspapers, just because for a time I have had my ears stopped—mind you I have not done it myself—to all but distant echoes of home and friends and England. If I could respond as you would like me to to your feelings I should be unable to go on with this job in ignorance whether it is to last weeks or months or years…
We have such fine moonlight nights now, pale hazy moonlight. Yesterday too we had a coloured sunset lingering in the sky and after that at intervals a bright brassy glare where they were burning waste cartridges. The sky of course winks with broad flashes almost all round at night and the air sags and flaps all night.
I expect there will be a letter today. Never think I can do without one any more than you can dearest. Kiss the children for me.
All and always yours
Edwy
Ezra Pound
30 January 1916
Stone Cottage, Coleman's Hatch, Sussex
Dear Mr Pinker:
I have read the effusion of Mr Duckworth's reader with no inconsiderable disgust. These vermin crawl over and be-slime our literature with their pulings, and nothing but the day of judgement can, I suppose, exterminate 'em. Thank god one need not [longhand: under ordinary circumstances] touch them.
Hark to his puling squeek. Too "unconventional". What in hell do we want but some change from the unbearable monotony of the weekly six shilling pears soap annual novel. [longhand: and the George Robey-Gaby mixture]
"Carelessly written", this of the sole, or almost sole piece of contemporary prose that one can enjoy sentence by sentence and re-read with pleasure. (I except Fred. Manning's "Scenes and Portraits" (pub. Murray, 1910.)
It is with difficulty that I manage to write to you at all on being presented with the Duckworthian muck, the dungminded dungbeared, penny a line, please the mediocre-at-all-cost doctrine. You English will get no prose till you exterminate this breed.....
to say nothing of the abominable insolence of the tone.
I certainly will have nothing to do with the matter. The Egoist was willing to publish the volume, Lane would have read it while ago.
I must repeat my former offer, if this louse will specify exactly what verbal changes he wants made I will approach Joyce in the matter. But I most emphatically will not forward the insults of an imbecile to one of the very few men for whom I have the faintest respect.
Canting, supercilious, blockhead.... I always supposed from report that Duckworth was an educated man, but I can not reconcile this opinion with his retention of the author of the missive you send me.
If you have to spend your life in contact with such minds, Gold help you, and do accept my good will and sympathy in spite of the tone of this note.
God! "a more finished piece of work".
Really, Mr Pinker, it is too insulting, even to be forwarded to Joyce's friend, let alone to Joyce.
And the end... also found fault with... again, oh God, o Montreal... Why can't you send the publishers readers to the serbian front and get some good out of the war..
Serious writers will certainly give up the use of English altogether unless you can improve the process of publication.
In conlusion. You have give me a very unpleasant quarter of an hour, my disgust flows over, though I suppose there is no use in spreading it over this paper. If there is any phrase or form of contempt that you care to convey from me to the reeking Malebolge of the Duckworthian slum, pray, consider yourself at liberty to draw on my account (unlimited credit) and transmit it.
Please, if you have occasion to write again, either in regard to this book or any other. Please do not enclose plublisher's readers opinions.
Sincerely yours
Ezra Pound
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