Jay to Bee - Janet Frame

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We are the grim foreboders

       of a treeless tasteless earth.

      You will be having lunch now, sitting outside under the butterflies, and Paul will be there, and Ned will be lounging around with his fur sticking out—I’ve never seen a cat whose fur sticks out in so many directions at once, he looks like a black and white thistle-ball, the kind that we used to call ‘robbers’, and ‘one o’clocks’. I suddenly remember that in my little house in Dunedin I’m not entirely catless—there’s a neighbour’s cat comes to visit me, and when I am downstairs doing my washing in the oldfashioned washing-tubs the cat climbs on the edge of the tub and hits at the water with his paws. I thought at first it was a materialized dream-cat and I was disappointed when I discovered it belonged to a neighbour.

      I’m looking forward to Yaddo where I shall be able to walk outside in the woods in the snow and I expect that my new novel will be filled with snow. I am comforted and enclosed by my preliminary vision and I shall try desperately to keep it whole while I reach out to find the words but I know from experience its depressing fragility. Did you ever read a story by William Saroyan, ‘The Sunday Zeppelin’, in which some children see an advertisement trying to sell a zeppelin with an illustration of two children away up in the sky inside their zeppelin, calling out, Goodbye World. And when they send for the actual thing it turns out to be made of tissue-paper and it tears the first time they try to use it.

      Lolo (the Sumatran visitor) said that for many many years his tribe was forbidden to make any music. Music and dancing were exclusively religious and when the Dutch missionaries came to the country, as they forbade the practice of animism they also forbade the practice of music, and dancing. One can’t believe that the missionaries were entirely obeyed, but the story is still of desolation and murder.

      No limericks today.

      I look often at your and Paul’s catalogue—I wish I had seen all the photographs in the gallery. More of this in another letter: I mean that I am trying to describe their effect in words, just because I like to do this. I hope an angel continues to guard your work.

      I’m enclosing a Dunedin picture, not very good. It’s near where I live.

       J

      11. until 30th December, c/o Money, (Baltimore) from January 3rd until February 18th, c/o Yaddo after that whoopee.

      Dear Bill,

      Hello again. It was wonderful to hear your voice in the wilderness. It’s very early morning, outside is cold with a sprinkling of snow with more promised, inside is too warm.

      John Money is getting ready to fly away for Christmas. His Sumatran friend flew away yesterday—he was a nice gentle quiet man, a nuclear physicist who will return in a couple of years to his village and tribe and primitive living. I wonder what will become of him. Indirectly, you have made his life more fruitful, Bill. I’ve been spending much time listening to music and tinkering (ghastly word but accurate description) at the piano—I do miss your music (and you) terribly—and Lolo joined in the interest, and now he is returning to his midWestern University and its pretty lonely life, he is going to study the piano in his spare time.

      I have received what is usually called the ‘Yaddo information’. It is so full of dire warnings and promises of peril that I wonder if this is not a psychological device to prepare the artists to do their best work?

      Quote:

      in this bad weather it is important for guests to get there no later than three. Taxis, in bad driving weather, often refuse to come inside the grounds and this makes for real difficulties . . . we ask guests who are in the early stages of a cold to please delay their arrival until there is no danger to other guests . . .

      And so on. A dangerous place, Yaddo. I shall have a little more privacy than when I was there before as they are giving me an artist’s (painter’s) studio outside.

      I’ve had an eloquent fan letter from a French student who is writing a thesis on my work. It is hard to know what to say in reply, particularly as one always has in mind the perfection of Rilke’s replies to the young poet. This young man is now inspired to become a writer. He asks me—‘If you could send me an advice which could be put across the untrue and traffic-jammed roads of literature, pointing to the darkest lanes leading to the essential and deepest part of man it would be a landmark, a milestone, a witness tree in my future . . .’ What can one say to that?

      I’ve also had a letter from the representative of the ‘anonymous business group’ in New Zealand, reminding me that my budget seems very strictly minimal . . .

      I’m still on Pacific Time. Ewig.aa

      German word for eternity—common in Rilke and Goethe

      I played a Hindemith Horn Concerto; and of course every day I play [in margin: Lili Kraus plays it!] a little Schubert. The only Sonata here, the A Major is beautiful. I play the Impromptus over and over and each time I discover so much in them and I change my allegiance from one to the other. They are true poems. Instead of having total allegiance to the feelings aroused by the music I now feel moved by special groups of notes and by the silence between changes from one note-mass to another. Well, they’re all heartbreakers. I remember that when my sister’s small son began to learn to play the piano he said, Mummy why do my eyes get all prickly when I play the piano and hear the music?

      Down with sentiment. Up with so much.

      More later. I must wash.

      I’ll even look around for The Heart of Darkness . . .

      I have just received a cable from N.Z. telling me that Pocket Mirror has won the yearly award for literary achievement—200 dollars.

      Blah blah

       What are you doing what are you

       painting how is the piano are there

       still butterflies is the new fir

       tree growing does the Pacific

       still flow Ned likewise

       are you alive and real is my

       constant communication too

       constant say hello to Paul

       who is very wise have you

       had your laughter ration

       every day

       That was a lovely walk

       we 3 had in the hills among

       the mountain lions and the

       live oaks and I think often

       of it and I like your paintings on the wall. The nude group in

       a circle on a hill top—is it twilight

      12. as from Yaddo, but really now from Baltimore where the wind is raging outside

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