The Belles Lettres Papers

by Charles Simmons

Jonathan Margin and Newbold Press, the man everyone loves to bait, struggle for editorial control of a book review magazine.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, American, Comedy

175 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1987

About the author

Charles Simmons (August 17, 1924 – June 1, 2017) was an American editor and novelist.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See:

Charles Simmons, American clergyman and author
Charles Simmons
Charles Simmons, Autobiographer

Reviews

[Duane Parker]

Charles Simmons for 33 years was editor of the New York Times Book Review. So when he wrote his satire of Belles Lettres, a fictional book review magazine in New York, everyone thought he was taking aim at the NYT Book Review. And maybe he was. For years people were trying to match real people with characters in the book. I liked this book because it takes a humorous look at the inter-workings of a book review magazine; the political and personal relationships, the personalities that shape the style and tone of it's content. I would think with the number of dedicated readers, writers, and book reviewers here on Goodreads this would be a favorite. But it seems to gave slipped quietly into anonymity. I found it listed on Guardian's 1000 best novels list.

4 stars

[Realini Ionescu]

The Belles Lettres Papers by Charles Simmons is one of Realini’s Best 100 Comedies http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... and one of The 1,000 Books Everyone Must Read

10 out of 10


When one reads a fabulous book like The Belles Lettres Papers and finds that it is almost forgotten and it did not have the immense impact one expected, there appear to be two rather disturbing perspectives, one that the reader must have little or no idea what value is, and the other, if this glorious Charles Simmons has received so scarce, parsimonious praise – there are some positive takes, but they are shadowed by criticism that looks too virulent for the under signed – what is there left for other scriveners, such as yours truly, who has been hoping to apply the Outliers principle as explained by Malcolm Gladwell http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/05/o... to his efforts and then produce a narrative that can have at least a few good reviews to propel it…



‘Slight as Simmons' material is, he has made it funny enough that one hopes that, now that he's given the book world a kick in the axis, he will recall past hurts and seek vengeance once again…" we would agree with the Washington wish, but since thirty five years have passed since the publication of this marvelous novel https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... there is little chance of a sequel, alas, I am not even sure what the age of the munificent author would be, if he is alive…

Charles Simmons had been editor for the New York Times Book Review and thus, as reviews of his magnum opus confirm, he has modelled the fictional Belles Lettres Paper on the paper he had worked for – the comment from the NYT book Review is among the most negative ‘Mr. Simmons' chief intent seems to be to scandalize’ says the chronicler and I say he is quite nasty and unfair – and the result is euphoric for this reader.



The present editor, Jonathan Margin, is not the Putinesque figure in the book, but we could not say that the author portrays himself in a grandiose posture, and if Margin has quite a few pleasant traits, he is smart, clairvoyant at times – when he is replaced, he anticipates the moves of the ‘half simian’ that will have taken his seat, who thinks Women in love had been written by…Lawrence of Arabia no less – but he is also weak, unprofessional and in a conflict of interest – he has an affair with Claire Tippon, his secretary, only we can see from the trajectory her career takes that it is the ambitious woman that had initiated it and she takes it to the goal she has (not that there is anything wrong here, if feminists, indeed, anybody reads this far, it is the way it should be, everybody must try and get what they want)

Marge, as some call the editor, sees that he has fallen in love, when Claire is in Hawaii, but it is not clear if she is there with someone else, and though the editor tries to find, we do not get a cellar picture, nevertheless, Jonathan Margin assigns the review of a new book to…his lover, only the result is more than confusing and he has to ask for help from his assistant, Frank Page, who is also the narrator of the saga…the latter has to write a new chronicle, for there is nothing he can do with what Claire had written…



Frank Page makes some disturbing remarks for those of us to try and write notes, sometimes more, journals, diaries, even a book or two, remarking on the futility of the exercise, how so many (nay, most, almost all) make terrible mistakes, they are the result of neglectful teachers, the assistant wonders why we (alas, I am one of those hopeless cases) continue with this pointless activity…however, writing is supposed to help, if nobody else expect the writer, for it does use a part of the brain that is not in operation when we talk, it helps us get over frustrations, depression, anger, since it has (different, and not always but sometimes a) logic, hence we can see some explanation, which is otherwise missed and infuriating – ‘why the hell did that happen, how could he say that’…well, when in writing, some of that makes sense, and if it still does not, then there is a distance between the text and us, by writing about some issues, we have ‘externalized them’ we are not so consumed by them anymore…

‘The Head of Simon and Schuster says Belles Lettres stinks’...and Mrs. Tooling, the wife of the owner of Belles Lettres, has to know if it does, she also ‘wants it to Award the Nobel Prize, to say who shall live and who shall die’ and the idea that the first twenty five writers of America should be placed on a list and that printed in the Lettres, which results in some amusing, confusing propositions, ‘start with Bellow, end with Updike’ and I was pleased to find among the names some of my favorites John Cheever, Walker Percy, along with some that I do not know and others that surprise (Woody Allen, now quite disgraced)



Owners of publications can be ghoulish, and Tool gives the editorship to a rather primitive ruffian, Newbold Press, and this new figure is both hilarious in his ignorance (there is the aforementioned confusion about Women in Love and its author…Lawrence of Arabia) and monstrous in his attitude towards staff, he would squash anybody, if it brought him any advantage and besides, as a drunk writer will state, he does it out of pleasure most often, if not always…he ‘looks like a hungry turtle’ in the swivel chair of his predecessor – the latter is a very tall man, while Press sits now with his chest at the table

The employees dislike him, they hate him eventually, and mock his serene ignorance, suggesting they send ‘entomology to Gregor Samsa’ and showing in their dialogues that their boss has no idea about books – true, there are quite a few names in there that may leave readers wondering ‘who the fuck is this or the other’ this is the title of a chapter that underlines the ineptitude, lack of solid education of some personages and alas, some of us, in the audience – eventually, Newbold Press will have found an explosive material to boost sales, his status and win the war if you will, and dominate the arena and foes…

He does not know about the copyboy who had been selling books and places on the bestseller list, so Press is promoting his Lettres with nine sonnets by William Shakespeare that have just been discovered…there are hilarious moments, to name just in passing, the degree from William and Harry, the editor eating alone at a table, because he is too young to eat with his wife’s guests, eat pussy on your own time, says Press, only to be dragged by his tie…this book is like the lost Shakespeare sonnets, only this one is real and a true chef d’oeuvre…

[Leslie]

3.5*

I may have been a bit hard in my rating as I was a little disappointed that this book wasn't funnier.

[Realini Ionescu]

Belles Lettres Papers by Charles Simmons is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, albeit it is only 6353rd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – you find a few thousand reviews of magnum opera from these and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
Newbold Press has a successor: Orange Caligula

10 out of 10

I have been ecstatic https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... when I first read Belles Lettres Papers and it was been enchanting to re discover the mirth, hilarity of some of the passages, gems like ‘a degree from Willaim and Harry’, the list of the twenty-five best American writers

Indeed, I have been consulting the list of The Greatest Books of All Time, I read oeuvres, sometimes chefs d’oeuvres from The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read and other sites, now I see that the GOAT even has suggestions, one was more than relevant, Balzac Human Comedy, the other appears strange: The Stoner
The Belles Lettres is a comedy, it is in this section on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, and the name of a publication that has become the crème de la crème for the literary world, and though it is pure fiction, the events, characters are surely inspired by reality, today we can see people that are the epitome of incompetence

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... Newbold Press, the fraud, vile editor from the book has now a replica in The Orange Idiot from what used to be the White House, turned into a construction/demolition site, by one of the most revolting individuals ever seen
this Orange Newbold Press has just mused over changing the Strait of Hormuz to Trump Strait, after renaming the Ontario Lake, Golf of Mexico, posting the other day the list of US presidents: the greatest is his orange highness, great Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, failures Biden, Obama, I mean you wouldn’t think this possible, some years ago

Anthony Burgess https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... is the soft reviewer in Belles Lettres Papers, and I looked at my review on the magnificent Clockwork Orange and I was on about The Orange Alex in there, the psychopath, nevertheless, it must be worrying
They would say that this is derangement symptom, only I see this as a symbol of decadence, if these are the leaders we have in the age of progress, well, then maybe AI would deserve taking over, if this is what the hoi polloi vote for, then HL Mencken was right ‘Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.’

Both Elon Musk and Yuval Harari seem to agree (with others, surely) that AI will take over in just ten years, Yuval Harari https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... however insists that humanity, its leaders can do something about it, if they act fast, and elections should be about this: AI

[Vel Veeter]

Your mileage on this one may vary wildly depending on a few things. I more or less liked this book, but wanted it to be much darker, much more cynical, and much more cutting. If you’re going to throw away friendships and a career at calling out bullshit of an entire industry — the very industry publishing your book — do it up!

This book is a kind of send up of the professional class of literary criticism in New York circa 1985 or so. I don’t mean the world of academic criticism, but professional, economic criticism of published “literature.” The novel takes places within a publication that is a sort of plaything of intellectuals and deals with a variety of different characters at the magazine and may or may not be about various people you, I, or the reading public might know. It’s not that coy a lot of the times, but then is coy at other times and that can be frustrating. If you’re going to call Gore Vidal circa 1985 a hack, tell us that Faulkner drank himself out of good writing for the last 15 years of his career, and create a cynically cultivated and curated list of the 25 best authors in the country, again, make it count.

It was apparently written in installments and published anonymously in the mid80s and then turned out to be from a longstanding editor of the New York Review of Books who demurred about who it was actually about.

Like Crome Yellow by Aldoux Huxley or Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn (or even the literary industry in JK Rowling’s The Silkworm) sometimes it’s deliciously ripe, but a lot of times it just ends up falling flat.

[Karen]

* 1000 novels everyone must read: the definitive list

Selected by the Guardian's Review team and a panel of expert judges, this list includes only novels – no memoirs, no short stories, no long poems – from any decade and in any language. Originally published in thematic supplements – love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel – they appear here for the first time in a single list.

[Gilly]

Arch and entertaining, without any edifying nonsense to spoil the fun. Outdated cultural values for sure, but they didn't get in my way.

[Ken Ryu]

Simmons writes a satire on the history of the "Belles Lettres" literary magazine. The characters are told by one of the longtime editors Frank Page. After a slow start, the magazine gains prominence as a force and tastemaker in the literary world. The direction of the magazine is greatly influenced by the various editor in chiefs including Samuel Serif, Skippy Overleaf, Jonathan Margin and Newbold Press. The owner Cyrus Tooling, his son Cyrus Tooling Jr, and Cyrus Jr's wife, Mary Tooling, determine the winners and losers of power struggles when various factions and crises threaten the well-being of the magazine.

Interoffice affairs, pay-for-play schemes, sexual harassment lawsuits, and ownership transitions are some of the more complicated affairs the editors and owners have to contend with. The real crisis in when the business-oriented editor-in-chief Newbold Press enters the picture. Press is a square peg in a round hole. His lack of literary depth, as well as his brash and dehumanizing managerial style, challenges the rest of the Belles Lettres team to band together in opposition to this outside agitator. Press' many slights and rash firing of longtime staff members stimulates a mutinous atmosphere. The question is which side will win with the Toolings serving as judge and jury over the battle.

This is an enjoyable exploration in the pros and cons of a powerful literary magazine. Simmons shows us how the literary elite think, work and judge. We also see how the interplay between finance, business and art works. Simmons enjoys turning the tables on the gatekeepers of his industry by lampooning the process by which authors are exulted, damned or ignored. Simmons has fun with the project and leads with wit over bitterness, making the book enjoyable and light.

[Samuel]

Eine kleine, leicht satirische Verlagsgeschichte. Im Zentrum steht die Literaturzeitschrift „Belles Lettres“, die Gegenstand einer wissenschaftlichen Arbeit des Erzählers war. Das erste Kapitel gibt somit die Ge-schichte der Verlages wieder, der Rest das Erleben des Erzählers als Angestellter. Literarische Werke stehen nicht im Vordergrund, sondern vielmehr das Mit- und Gegen-einander von Besitzern, Verlegern, Chefredakteuren und Mitarbeitern. Sozusagen eine Verlagsmitarbeiterstudie, die, wie jedes Miteinander, geprägt ist von Vorurteilen, Konkurrenz etc. pp. Dabei werden die Figuren aber nur recht grob gezeichnet, auf wesentliche Merkmale reduziert. Schnelle Schreibe, die nur das Wesentliche im Auge hat, auf die einzelnen Höhepunkte zielstrebig zusteuert und dort nur kurz verweilt. Der Erzähler wird schnell die rechte Hand des Chefredakteurs, hilft aus, wo ihm die Macht fehlt und etabliert sich so als ein wichtiger Motor. Als der neue, ungeliebte Chefredakteur kommt, kann er den Widerstand zwar nicht organisieren, aber dennoch die Fäden zie-hen.

Das ist alles ganz nett und auch launig geschrieben, aber ohne wirkliche Tiefe. Die Überzeichnungen sind schöne Karikaturen, auch wenn alles dann etwas zu gerade, zu glatt und schwarz / weiß.