Day
, by Simone de Beauvoir. Translated by Patrick Dudley (pseud.). (New York: Grove Press, 1953), p. 294.
44. The phrase sounds distinctly like one of Algren’s, and indeed he is paraphrasing and condensing de Beauvoir here so freely that he has rewritten her, perhaps without fully realizing it. To have restored her wording in this case would have been to change his meaning.
Here is a passage from the conclusion of
America Day by Day
, de Beauvoir’s account of her four-month trip across America in 1947 in which she first met Algren, which may have been the source for Algren’s sentence: “There are very few ambitious people here.… Ambitions for greatness are often the source of many deceptions, and indicted by faults Americans do not know; they have virtues born of indifference to themselves. They are not embittered, persecuted or ill-willed, envious or egotistical. But they have no inner fire. In order to lose themselves in the pursuit of an object, they find themselves without an object at all.” p. 294.
45. Letter from Anton Chekhov to A. S. Suvorin, written from Nice on February 6, 1898. In
Letters of Anton Chekhov
, selected and edited by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney and Lynn Solotaroff. (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), p. 304. The reference here is to the Dreyfus case. Chekhov’s letter was written from France on the eve of the trial of Zola for his exposé
(J’accuse!)
of the court-martial that acquitted Major Esterhazy in the Dreyfus case. Chekhov passionatelysupported Zola’s stand against the hypocrisy of the attack on Dreyfus and argued it repeatedly in letters to his friend and publisher Suvorin. The same letter that Algren quotes, for example, begins, “You write that you are vexed by Zola, but here [Nice] the general feeling is as if a new, better Zola has been born. In this trial of his he has been cleansed of superficial grease spots as by turpentine, and shines forth before the French in his true splendor. It is a purity, a moral loftiness that no one suspected.”
46. Fulton Sheen, a Roman Catholic Bishop of New York, was a noted radio and TV preacher who won the 1952 Emmy as most outstanding male personality on television. Fulton Oursler was a writer and editor on religious themes, author of
The Greatest Story Ever Told
. Fulton Lewis was a radio commentator.
47.
America Day by Day
, by de Beauvoir, pp. 80-1. This account of de Beauvoir’s first evening with Algren was not, as is self-evident, part of Algren’s original essay. I include it here to maintain the consistency of the structure of Algren’s essay, in which he alternated his own words with long quotes from other writers, and as a rare window into Algren’s sensibility since, as in this essay itself, it shows Algren, uncharacteristically, revealing the sources of his inspiration. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
48. Popular singer of the period, whose number one hit was called “Cry.”
49. Mafia bosses.
50. Hawkins and Young were jazz tenor saxophonists; the Mills Brothers are credited with founding the “black-harmony” singing style and paving the way for 50s rock and roll; the Billy Williams Quartet performed weekly on Ceasar & Coca’s “Your Show of Shows” in the 1950s; singers in the “hep harmony” tradition, Monroe and Laine were singers of, respectively, the 1930s and 40s; Gene Krupa was a “Chicago style” jazz drummer, while Jackie Cooper, an actor, possibly made it to this list for the poetic similarity of his name to Krupa’s; or perhaps Algren mistakenly thought Cooper had played Krupa in the biopic
The Gene Krupa Story
.
51. The Bridewell Cure was a cold turkey “cure” named after the Illinois prison where the practice was notorious.
52.
Conversations with Nelson Algren
, by H. E. F. Donohue (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964), pp. 279-80.
53. Letter from Chekhov to A. S. Suvorin, February 6, 1898. In Chekhov, p. 305.
54. Westbrook Pegler was
, by Simone de Beauvoir. Translated by Patrick Dudley (pseud.). (New York: Grove Press, 1953), p. 294.
44. The phrase sounds distinctly like one of Algren’s, and indeed he is paraphrasing and condensing de Beauvoir here so freely that he has rewritten her, perhaps without fully realizing it. To have restored her wording in this case would have been to change his meaning.
Here is a passage from the conclusion of
America Day by Day
, de Beauvoir’s account of her four-month trip across America in 1947 in which she first met Algren, which may have been the source for Algren’s sentence: “There are very few ambitious people here.… Ambitions for greatness are often the source of many deceptions, and indicted by faults Americans do not know; they have virtues born of indifference to themselves. They are not embittered, persecuted or ill-willed, envious or egotistical. But they have no inner fire. In order to lose themselves in the pursuit of an object, they find themselves without an object at all.” p. 294.
45. Letter from Anton Chekhov to A. S. Suvorin, written from Nice on February 6, 1898. In
Letters of Anton Chekhov
, selected and edited by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney and Lynn Solotaroff. (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), p. 304. The reference here is to the Dreyfus case. Chekhov’s letter was written from France on the eve of the trial of Zola for his exposé
(J’accuse!)
of the court-martial that acquitted Major Esterhazy in the Dreyfus case. Chekhov passionatelysupported Zola’s stand against the hypocrisy of the attack on Dreyfus and argued it repeatedly in letters to his friend and publisher Suvorin. The same letter that Algren quotes, for example, begins, “You write that you are vexed by Zola, but here [Nice] the general feeling is as if a new, better Zola has been born. In this trial of his he has been cleansed of superficial grease spots as by turpentine, and shines forth before the French in his true splendor. It is a purity, a moral loftiness that no one suspected.”
46. Fulton Sheen, a Roman Catholic Bishop of New York, was a noted radio and TV preacher who won the 1952 Emmy as most outstanding male personality on television. Fulton Oursler was a writer and editor on religious themes, author of
The Greatest Story Ever Told
. Fulton Lewis was a radio commentator.
47.
America Day by Day
, by de Beauvoir, pp. 80-1. This account of de Beauvoir’s first evening with Algren was not, as is self-evident, part of Algren’s original essay. I include it here to maintain the consistency of the structure of Algren’s essay, in which he alternated his own words with long quotes from other writers, and as a rare window into Algren’s sensibility since, as in this essay itself, it shows Algren, uncharacteristically, revealing the sources of his inspiration. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
48. Popular singer of the period, whose number one hit was called “Cry.”
49. Mafia bosses.
50. Hawkins and Young were jazz tenor saxophonists; the Mills Brothers are credited with founding the “black-harmony” singing style and paving the way for 50s rock and roll; the Billy Williams Quartet performed weekly on Ceasar & Coca’s “Your Show of Shows” in the 1950s; singers in the “hep harmony” tradition, Monroe and Laine were singers of, respectively, the 1930s and 40s; Gene Krupa was a “Chicago style” jazz drummer, while Jackie Cooper, an actor, possibly made it to this list for the poetic similarity of his name to Krupa’s; or perhaps Algren mistakenly thought Cooper had played Krupa in the biopic
The Gene Krupa Story
.
51. The Bridewell Cure was a cold turkey “cure” named after the Illinois prison where the practice was notorious.
52.
Conversations with Nelson Algren
, by H. E. F. Donohue (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964), pp. 279-80.
53. Letter from Chekhov to A. S. Suvorin, February 6, 1898. In Chekhov, p. 305.
54. Westbrook Pegler was
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