Selected Letters [Hardcover]

Guy Davenport (Author), James Laughlin (Author), W. C. Bamberger (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Selected Letters | Publication Date: January 17, 2007

An epistolary exchange that highlights two singular intellects, their disparate approaches to literature and their mutual admiration.

This volume features selections from the New Directions founder's correspondence with Guy Davenport, the polymath artist and author of The Geography of the Imagination. More than simply detailing an author/publisher relationship, these letters depict two fine minds educating and supporting each other in the service of literature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his very first letter to Guy Davenport, James Laughlin wrote, "Just a line to tell you what a beautiful piece that was you wrote about Tom Merton in The National Review." Laughlin could not have imagined his note of admiration would set off an avalanche of missives, but 480 letters later (234 by Laughlin and 245 by Davenport), they had a discourse well worth preserving. The 28-year conversation (1969-97) between talented writer Davenport (who, as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford wrote the university's first thesis on James Joyce) and the New Directions publisher (who published luminaries like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams) largely concerns work-their own and others'-and the nuances of language (Challenging Davenport's use of two words-"gutulliocae" and "archeotera"-missing from his dictionary, Laughlin writes, "I'm not trying to copy-edit you. I just get curious about new words"). Heavy footnoting makes for some slow reading, but Bamberger's careful explication of the more obscure allusions ("Andreas Divus, whose translation of Homer's Odyssey into Latin ... was one of the inspirations for Pound's Cantos") are well worth the detour. With Bamberger's help, this collection of intellectual epistles reads like an extended, two-part love song to the English language.
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About the Author

As Bruce Bawer wrote in Bookforum, "the late Guy Davenport (1927-2005) left behind an oeuvre that is one long lesson in the history of civilization, and to read any part of it—story, essay, or translation—is to be enthralled by his unflagging intellectual energy and engagement." His books include The Geography of the Imagination, The Death of Picasso, Herakleitos and Diogenes, A Table of Green Fields, The Cardiff Team, DaVinci's Bicycle, and many more.

W. C. Bamberger operates Bamberger Books, which keeps Guy Davenport’s poem Flowers & Leaves in print. He lives in Whitmore Lake, Michigan.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (January 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393059502
• ISBN-13: 978-0393059502
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #868,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Selected Letters of Guy Davenport and James Laughlin, January 25, 2007

By 

Nicholas L. Boyd (usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Selected Letters (Hardcover)

A pure pleasure. If you admire Davenport's work you'll enjoy this. The editor says that it was Laughlin's wishes that his side of the correspondence in this series be kept to a minimum, but there's still enough to interest a fan of Laughlin's work as well. And give Norton, the publisher, credit for not balking at including Davenport's characterization of those who supply the "idiotic footnotes" for Norton poetry anthologies as "entertainingly illiterate." I'm comparatively illiterate myself, in the standard set by these two writers. But--surely the "Passage to India" Davenport refers to on page 115 is not the Forster novel footnoted, but Whitman's poem? But you won't read this for the footnotes anyway.
Not a lot of literary gossip--you may sometimes wonder what the editorial elipses after, say, Gary Snyder is mentioned might be keeping from you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great minds think alike, January 19, 2011

By 

Paul A. Baker "communicator" (Madison, Wis., US) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Selected Letters (Hardcover)

In the early 1980s I took one class with Guy Davenport and that experience still influences my interests and tastes. Ideas from that classroom echo through this book, which presents spirited, humorous, and insanely erudite correspondence (via typed letters!) between two intellectual companions. Prepare to be inspired.