LETTERS
BEWLEY FUND
PR :
A committee has been formed to
honor the memory of Marius Bew–
ley in some way appropriate to his
spirit and interests. We would like
to establish a fund of some $20,000
in his name and use the income for
two occasions each year: a reading
of poetry one semester and a public
lecture the other, on the Rutgers
campus at New Brunswick where
Marius was a beloved and dis–
tinguished teacher.
Contributions should be made
payable to the Marius Bewley Fund
and sent to : Professor Richard
Poirier, Department of English, 330
Scott Hall, Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, New J ersey 08903
Marius Bewley Fund Committee
Richard Poirier, Chairman;
Barbara Epstein, Paul Fussell,
David Kalstone, C. F. Main,
James Merrill, Karl Miller,
Frederick Morgan
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MIGHT MADE RIGHT
PR :
lowe an apology to Bernard
Malamud for turning in side out a
point he made in his N.B.A. accept–
ance speech in 1967. In "Reading
Myself,"
(PR
3/1973) I explained
a shift in my own literary interests
in this way: "Gradually the
least
promising material began to seem
to me the most attractive, material
unlike, say, what Malam ud may
have had in mind when, upon ac–
cepting the ational Book Award
for
The Fixer,
he quoted from Mel–
ville to the effect that a 'a great
book demands a great subject.' " I
have now come upon Malamud's es–
say, "Theme, Content and the 'New
Novel,' " adapted from that speech
and published
in
the anthology
Page
2, edited by Frances Brown.
It
turns out that I had not remem–
bered the Melville quotation he
read to the audience in Philhar–
monic Hall that evening in March of
1967 any better than I remembered
what he had then said about it. "To
produce a mighty book," Melville
wrote, "you must choose a mighty
theme" -- a statement which led
Malamud to comment, " . .. it's ob–
vious that a migh ty theme doesn't
necessarily guarantee a mighty
book .. . some who have made a
study of 'great themes' - - indeed,
keep lists of them in their billfolds
-- when they try to make use of
one, beat a hollow drum. They may
want to work with a significant
theme, but it doesn't excite their
experience, or speak to their tal–
ent. "
If
I had sought out the source
. and context of the Melville quota–
tion before convenien tiy garbling it
to help make a point, I would have
discovered that what Malamud had
actually said was something with
which of course I wholeheartedly
agreed.
Philip Roth
