Eric MOTTRAM in New York discoursing on his and T. Wignesan's writing and on NEGRO literary productions: Ralph ELLISON, Leroi JONES, etc.
And "Last Exit to Brooklyn", etc.

AIR-LETTER
Department of English, New York University,
Washington Square, New York,
New York 1000
Re-Addressed to Mr. T. Wignesan, c/o Howard Hotel, Friargate, DERBY.
October 31, 1965

Dear Wignesan,

Your news of successes was great : well done and well deserved. I did not know of your Cardiff prowess at all [ I had an active role as one of two Vice-Chairmen of the First Commonwealth Festival of the Arts Poetry Conference at Cardiff, together with Wole Soyinka as the other, under Bill Harpe's Chairmanship] -- (how could i posssibly find out ?) , and I want very much to hear the details of the discussions, especially since you know how much I am concerned with this kind of literature. As for the Royal Court incident - scene of many crimes -- I can only say I'd like to have been there to hear the Great Man read his stuff and -- condescending --his "fellow Malaysians".

[ I was invited to read poetry by Malaysians and Singaporeans -- including mine -- and the incident EM refers to concerns an interview with me by the journalist Edward Lucie-Smith for the Times of London which the event's organizer disrupted: The Royal Court Theatre in London is the property of Anthony Blond's father who was the first JEW ever to be appointed to the Coldstream Guards at the Buckingham Palace; hence the closeness to the Duke of Edinburgh. Anthony Blond's maternal uncle was the official Royal Court Photographer. My litigation against A. Blond had already begun then.]

I haven't seen any reports of disturbances.... I knew you'd do well and could not really understand why you hesitated to take the plunge -- it couldn't possibly have been diffidence. Or could it ? I fear the size of your soul [?] and head now, but try to shrink a little, down to my own size, e.g.... I strongly believe success is good for some people, you being one of them -- don't be too surprised.

I look forward to your NLR [New Left Review reviewed my edited anthology "Bunga Emas" rather salaciously by an anonymous reviewer, and when I went to see them myself, admitted that they were aiming at bigger game - not me nor my anthology ...] but I have to admit I didn't see the cause: must have missed it among all the other magazines piled up and left behind unread. I think of the empty basement and few regrets, except that I miss all my friends, students, even you quite a lot, even though the combination of university people and local writers here is beginning to surge in on me. The main problem is to take it easy. I do not have lectures to give, so that is fine, but leisure is a curious burden at first: the routine has to be worked out again based on learning how to sit in the square in the sun, take in a movie without guilt in the afternoon, or go to an exhibition, or read something not remotely connected to any work in hand. And not to have the near future mapped out ready to move into. Choice is strange when you are not used to it so totally. So I too - and not because of your [underlined] absence -- am beginning to write poems again, weird things but decently done. Perhaps I'm no scholar after all -- long suspected, and on good evidence.

I am still working on the Negro pieces: masses of materials -- only part of which will go into the TLS [Times Literary Supplement] article -- the rest will be ready for anything further, apart from sheer interest of the thing. My Tribune article attacked American assumed innocences appeared and they liked it. Future thing on Frost in Spectator, etc. etc. But once this is through, I'm not going to bother about writing these bits for a while.

There's only one book I feel like recommending you, and that is not yet out in England -- Ralph Ellison's Shadow and Act [underlined], a highly literate and penetrating collection of essays by the author of Invisible Man [underlined] (you've read this novel? Penguin if not -- it's tremendous and no Negro novel has approached it yet although Leroi Jones's new The System of Dante's Hell [underlined] is interesting in another way. Most of the stuff I've been going through has been sociologically fascinating but artistically humdrum to downright bad. Kitschy stuff for the market only. Watch out for Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn [underlined] (and my broadcast with him) -- it is mostly brilliant if entirely disturbing. Calder have asked me to defend it, if necessary, since they apparently anticipate a court case. [As expected, the court case did occur at the Old Bailey, London, and EM starred in its defence.] It does deal with violence and brutal sexuality but with a cool analytical sympathy which is new and necessary.

What else? .... Oh, yes: a good film called To Die in Madrid [underlined], compiled from the newsreels, etc. of the Spanish Civil War: the feeling I had of the futility of ideological warfare but its necessity was painful. Members of the audience openly cheered the Franco-RC Priests combinations and there were one or two counter cheers but no fight. The film is generally too subduing. And (in) the present context -- the NY elections and the anti-war demonstrations too clearly part of a similar process of authoritarian government, backed by an ignorant and brutalized populace.

Incidentally, films here are a superb opportunity -- this week, for instance, one nearby cinema is showing in one programme three [underlined] major Renoir films. Double bills of important films are a commonplace. Slowly I'm catching up on what I have missed.
Have I been living wrongly these past ten years, all bound up in work rut and imaginary self-importance ? Certainly, shifting here is perspectivizing.

Write more of your good news. When you have a moment's pause for breath.

Yours,

Eric

(c) T. Wignesan -Paris, 1965-2023