managed to win because Pius XII’s party is still strong. Everyone attacks America’s Irish clergy and Cardinal Spellman, but I notice that their reasons are the opposite of the usual criticisms of the Church’s authoritarian, hierarchical spirit: here they criticize their lack of formality, their ‘democratic’ offhandedness, their ignorance of Latin. Everyone is scandalized here by the fact that they have placed a glass case in St Patrick’s cathedral with a coloured wax statue of Pius XII, of natural size, with hair and everything just like in Madame Tussaud’s; they cannot understand how the Vatican has not intervened against this act of sacrilege, which was surely engineered by Spellman in order to spite Pope John XXIII. They are full of praise for Mencken as the great destroyer of American democratic myths. And the Hungarian in turn is full of praise for Karl Kraus (now adored by Cases, 32 just as Mencken played the role of master to all of America’s left wing). The way they extol
The Leopard
(which they have no hesitation in putting on the same level as Manzoni), solely for reactionary reasons, confirms – as far as I’m concerned – the enormous importance of this book in the West’s current ideological involution. Many of these discussions were clearly inspired by my presence in their midst, with minimal polemical effort on my part, naturally: I am absolutely fine with those who openly declare themselves to be reactionary, I am on friendly terms with Prezzolini, while with the count and the marchioness (whom I will see later at a business lunch) we have common ground in our knowledge of Bordighera and its society.
N. B. Opinions on [James] Purdy and particularly on
Malcolm
are negative even in the Farrar Straus environment. I have not found anyone who had a good word to say about Purdy (whom I shall meet soon); on the other hand, yesterday evening they were all unanimous in lauding Malamud as the great new writer; an interesting verdict coming from Catholics. Consequently, in this year’s planning, I would say to promote Malamud more than Purdy.
How a Big Bookshop Works
(From the conversation I had with the manageress of Brentano’s.) The American bookshop is more complicated than an Italian one for the simple fact that the number of books published is so great that nobody, on the sales side, thinks it is possible to be on top of all of it. Brentano’s is organized very well: it is a huge bookstore with separate tables for new fiction, history, poetry, and so on, and even including sections for paperbacks (which are usually handled not by a bookseller but by the local drugstore or newsagent or separate paperback shop), periodicals, and of course a Juveniles section which you find in every bookshop. They do not buy on the one-free-copy-per-dozen system; the bookseller receives a discount of 40 percent; on rare occasions the publisher provides one free copy in every ten. Orders are taken when the publisher’s agent makes his monthly call. The staff are just shop assistants as in tie-shops and would not dream of knowing anything about books. The public are not in the habit of visiting bookshops; if for example a mother reads a review of a book on child-rearing she maybe telephones or writes to the publisher asking what she has to do to buy it, but she is not in the habit of going to the bookseller. In short, it is not really interesting: it is exactly as it is in Italy. Now the bookshops are full of small reproductions of famous classical or modern statues, which must be the latest discovery by those engaged in mass reproduction of works of art, after the reproduction of paintings (in other words it is a practice as old as can be). However, it is ugly stuff.
Tail-lights
A study of the American psyche could be carried out by examining in particular the enormous tailfins of their cars and the great variety and elegance of the shapes of their tail-lights, which seem to embody all the myths of American
The Leopard
(which they have no hesitation in putting on the same level as Manzoni), solely for reactionary reasons, confirms – as far as I’m concerned – the enormous importance of this book in the West’s current ideological involution. Many of these discussions were clearly inspired by my presence in their midst, with minimal polemical effort on my part, naturally: I am absolutely fine with those who openly declare themselves to be reactionary, I am on friendly terms with Prezzolini, while with the count and the marchioness (whom I will see later at a business lunch) we have common ground in our knowledge of Bordighera and its society.
N. B. Opinions on [James] Purdy and particularly on
Malcolm
are negative even in the Farrar Straus environment. I have not found anyone who had a good word to say about Purdy (whom I shall meet soon); on the other hand, yesterday evening they were all unanimous in lauding Malamud as the great new writer; an interesting verdict coming from Catholics. Consequently, in this year’s planning, I would say to promote Malamud more than Purdy.
How a Big Bookshop Works
(From the conversation I had with the manageress of Brentano’s.) The American bookshop is more complicated than an Italian one for the simple fact that the number of books published is so great that nobody, on the sales side, thinks it is possible to be on top of all of it. Brentano’s is organized very well: it is a huge bookstore with separate tables for new fiction, history, poetry, and so on, and even including sections for paperbacks (which are usually handled not by a bookseller but by the local drugstore or newsagent or separate paperback shop), periodicals, and of course a Juveniles section which you find in every bookshop. They do not buy on the one-free-copy-per-dozen system; the bookseller receives a discount of 40 percent; on rare occasions the publisher provides one free copy in every ten. Orders are taken when the publisher’s agent makes his monthly call. The staff are just shop assistants as in tie-shops and would not dream of knowing anything about books. The public are not in the habit of visiting bookshops; if for example a mother reads a review of a book on child-rearing she maybe telephones or writes to the publisher asking what she has to do to buy it, but she is not in the habit of going to the bookseller. In short, it is not really interesting: it is exactly as it is in Italy. Now the bookshops are full of small reproductions of famous classical or modern statues, which must be the latest discovery by those engaged in mass reproduction of works of art, after the reproduction of paintings (in other words it is a practice as old as can be). However, it is ugly stuff.
Tail-lights
A study of the American psyche could be carried out by examining in particular the enormous tailfins of their cars and the great variety and elegance of the shapes of their tail-lights, which seem to embody all the myths of American
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