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February 1
FROM: Ms. Mariolena Sunwall; student; Tempe, Arizona.
Dear Dr. Youngdahl:
I want to thank you so much for the glorious lunch at Monti's La Casa Vieja and for giving me Mr. Klang's address. I have awarded this some thought and I think I will send him my manuscript as soon as I am back from the ski lodge. Until you put the idea into my head I could not picture myself as being the kind of writer who sends something to an agent in crass New York, but I will follow your advice anyhow, because it comes from you. I hope to think of an appropriate title soon, and perhaps at the same time I will arrive at a final decision on how to spell my name. Not that anyone is going to print it. (Please forgive me for the phrase "final decision." I recognize its redundance. I know I should not offend you who so relentlessly wars against redundance.)
I look forward to further comments you will be making on my manuscript. I recently learned that the abbreviation for "manuscript" is "ms.," which I consider prophetic because those are my own initials. I had thought "ms." referred only to the form of address for a woman, and to the magazine of that name.
I was relieved that you did not find my manuscript objectionable, and I was reassured to hear you say you did not in any way interpret the subject matter therein as autobiographical; understanding that that is not my life at all but the lives of characters I have invented: pure fiction out of the whole cloth. I understand now why authors like to print up in front of their books, "All the characters herein are purely fictional and any resemblance to real or livingpersons is purely coincidental."
I am hoping my parents will look on the matter in the same way, recognizing, as you do, the processes of fictional invention. However, that is a great deal to ask of people who have never given one moment's thought to the processes of anything except making money, fattening beef, grinding down children, and campaigning against the teaching of Darwinism in the schools of Arizona.
I suppose I should have known your attitude would be liberal and understanding. I know you don't like us to use superlatives, but you are the most sophisticated man I have ever met. As you can guess, most of the men I meet are boys. I feel so stupid about the wine in the restaurant, and I laugh with utmost admiration for your cosmopolitan wit when I remember your saying, "We should have ordered white wine with a white tablecloth." You amazed me. You never for a single instant looked at the wine; you just stood the glass up and placed a napkin over the scarlet pool and never took your eyes from mine. You are truly sophisticated. It was the nicest thing that has happened to me in a long time. You have told us time and again never to use the expression, "I have no words to express ..." because a writer should find the words to express whatever thoughts she wishes to express. Nevertheless, with many apologies for my error I must say, "I have no words to express my thrill of our luncheon."
You have given me self-confidence without which I could not have gone on. Last semester I was on the verge of leaving, feeling so victimized and put upon by so many people in this so-called institution, when one day you said to me, "O well, that's what we writers have to put up with." You were saying that I, too, was a writer. Nobody has ever said such a thing to me before. As far as I knew (know; I see that my tenses have fallen into inconsistency here) I was the only person in the world who viewed myself as a writer. I could not possibly have gone on without you. You opened every window for me.
Please consider the following thought: Would you consider me as a likely candidate to write your biography? Perhaps I should switch from fiction to non-fiction. Having told my story as a novel perhaps I am ready to undertake a huge, extensive work, such as your biography, which might take me a year to do. You need not answer right away. My plan would be to write down everything you say on every subject in your classroom, in your conferences with students, and at whatever social occasions I could manage to worm my way into. The things you say are so profound and so witty and so freighted with clarity that I should hate to see them wasted on the desert air.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
-- lines 53-56, Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard, Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
I am flying up again for a long weekend skiing in Colorado. I don't know why. I hate skiing, I hate the people I go with, and I always get a headache from the fireplace smoke in the lodge. The Snow Devil Ski Club leaves me cold. I stay in the lodge all day and write while everybody else is out skiing until the fireplace smoke drives me out. I am allergic to burning wood. Once outdoors I'll ski to keep from freezing to death. I cannot go into my private room because there are no doors on the rooms (therefore they are not even private, are they?) and one sleeps in the smoke all night if one sleeps at all. With no doors on the un-private rooms the mountain night echoes with the sounds of room-crashing by athletic or highly amorous young men similar to my descriptions in the corresponding chapter of my as-yet-untitled novel. But it's an opportunity for me to park my baby with friends here and there in Sin City and we get a chance to get away from each other.
This letter is the hardest writing I have ever done -- more superlatives. It doesn't sound the least bit like the me I know and love. I could write ten pages of hyperactive rolling-along fiction in the time it has taken me to write this letter.
Please, please enjoy every minute of your life rich in the love of your numerous family and your many friends, as you deserve. You are the best man I have ever met. You deserve everything good, everything the best, all possible superlatives.
Your very respectful student,
Copyright © 1984 by Mark Harris
