TRIBUTES TO WILLIAM PHILLIPS
215
When we left that first time, I knew I liked the man and I liked his
wife; I liked her unobtrusive caring for her husband's comfort and her
quiet intelligence. Sometimes William would invite other people over.
Since I tend to see very few people, having dinner with Norman Pod–
horetz and Midge Deeter, for example, was like meeting fabled people,
like meeting Clark Gable and Gloria Swanson. Norman talked about
The Prophets,
a book he was writing. The conversation was spirited .
Again, the wonderful Chinese takeout . .. an exotic and enchanting
evening for my wife and myself.
Each time we met, William and I talked, as old men do, about our ail–
ments. He appeared as interested in mine as I was in his. We shared that.
It was just easy, somehow, between us. Something happened . Love hap–
pened. We held hands.
Edith, I think I've said pretty much how I felt being in William's com–
pany. I feel a great sense of loss. For you, for your loss, there are no
words. Thank you for asking me to speak.
CYNTHIA OZICK
Rereading William Phillips's memoir,
A Partisan View,
the other day, I
came on what struck me as an astounding act of boldness . The year was
1962,
and this is what happened :
I met [Susan Sontag] at a Farrar, Straus and Giroux party [William
Phillips writes].
If
she had published anything, I did not know
about it, and I had never heard of her. She walked up
to
me and
said, "How do you write a review for
Partisan Review?"
I said,
"You ask." "I'm asking," she said. "O.K.," I answered, "what do
you want to do?"
Not long after this remarkable exchange,
Partisan Review
published
Sontag's "Notes on Camp." I read it at the time and only dimly under–
stood it, if I understood it at all. And in
1946,
when I was a freshman
at NYU, I understood even less. Here is how, in a confessional essay, I
remembered my dimness then:
Attached
to
a candy store, the newsstand. Copies of
Partisan
Review:
the table of the gods. Jean Stafford, Mary McCarthy, Eliz–
abeth Hardwick, Irving Howe, Delmore Schwartz, Alfred Kazin,
Cynthia Ozick is currently working on
Lights and Watchtowers,
a novel.
