A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill

by James Merrill, Langdon Hammer (Editor), Stephen Yenser (Editor)

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • The selected correspondence of the brilliant poet, one of the twentieth century's last great letter writers.

"I don't keep a journal, not after the first week," James Merrill asserted in a letter while on a trip around the world. "Letters have got to bear all the burden." A vivacious correspondent, whether abroad, where avid curiosity and fond memory frequently took him, or at home, he wrote eagerly and often, to family and lifelong friends, American and Greek lovers, confidants in literature and art about everything that mattered—aesthetics, opera and painting, housekeeping and cooking, the comedy of social life, the mysteries of the Ouija board and the spirit world, and psychological and moral dilemmas—in funny, dashing, unrevised missives, composed to entertain himself as well as his recipients.

On a personal "the ambivalence I live with. It worries me less and less. It becomes the very stuff of my art"; on a lunch for Wallace Stevens given by Blanche "It had been decided by one and all that nothing but small talk would be allowed"; on romance in his late "I must stop acting like an orphan gobbling cookies in fear of the plate's being taken away"; on great "they burn us like radium, with their decisiveness, their terrible understanding of what happens."
 
Merrill's daily chronicle of love and loss is unfettered, self-critical, full of good gossip, and attuned to the wicked irony, the poignant detail—a natural extension of the great poet's voice.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, LGBT

736 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

James Ingram Merrill was born on March 3, 1926, and died on February 6, 1995. From the mid-1950s on, he lived in Stonington, Connecticut, and for extended periods he also had houses in Athens and Key West. From The Black Swan (1946) through A Scattering of Salts (1995), he wrote twelve books of poems, ten of them published in trade editions, as well as The Changing Light at Sandover (1982). He also published two plays, The Immortal Husband (1956) and The Bait (1960); two novels, The Seraglio (1957, reissued in 1987) and The (Diblos) Notebook (1965, reissued 1994); a book of essays, interviews, and reviews, Recitative (1986); and a memoir, A Different Person (1993). Over the years, he was the winner of numerous awards for his poetry, including two National Book Awards, the Bollingen Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the first Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress. He was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the letters of a great writer (or composer, or artist) always feels a tad voyeuristic, but it can also yield remarkable insights into the character of the author. Mozart’s letters, for example, helped me to appreciate his work as something more than just Rococo fluff. Similarly, reading John Cage’s letters clarified many things about who he was as a person. Considering how openly autobiographical James Merrill’s poetry is, the letters don’t really tell us a lot we don’t already know from his poetry or his fiction. Instead they confirm what we already know (or suspect) about him. He grows up from being a bright, privileged kid to being a bright, privileged adult. That privilege - as the son of one of the founders of Merrill Chase - is really never questioned, and so places Merrill curiously to one side of the discussion about identity, race, colonialism, etc. that dominated so much art and literature in the 80s and 90s. He’s curiously modest about his erudition (he speaks French and Greek fluently, and is familiar with both the classics of literature and young contemporary poets, after being a judge for the Yale Poetry series for years). He’s also clearly kind and generous with his friends: many letters say “enclosed is a check.” What’s most hair-raising here are some of the transitions in relationships. Compare, for ex., the letter to David Jackson on their 25th anniversary as a couple (24 May 78) with the letter of 16 Jan 94, where Merrill says he can’t imagine ever living in the same place as Jackson ever again. Elsewhere, he wonders whether he is bad for people, or whether he just keeps getting mixed up with the wrong people. It’s a good question: would David Jackson have been different if he didn’t have Merrill’s financial support, and actually had to work for a living? The letters about the death of Chester Kallman are equally disturbing, and one wonders if Merrill recognizes that Kallman’s downward spiral as the “muse” of a great poet (W.H. Auden) might prefigure what will happen with Jackson. Yet Merrill’s poetry continues to exude its formal glow, and when he’s good, he’s very good indeed. I heard him read in Chicago in 1985: he had the most remarkable voice, and I always try to imagine that voice reading his words. These letters will place him in my ear for a long time to come.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

During Poetry Month when Knopf emails out the daily poem, I noticed I always like Merrill's poetry best of the month. Reading his letters, of course retired Midwestern farm women are not his target audience, he would have fallen over to think any such person would attempt them. Still, in this world there are people with his life and people with my life and perhaps it is good for us to meet in the pages of a book. I am still sort of blinking like a bewildered owl.

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

In one his letters, Merrill writes that great books "burn us like radium, with their decisiveness, their terrible understanding of what happens. One should be very careful when one reads them, at what time in one's life."

The same goes for this collection of his letters perhaps. This is probably not a book for someone who isn't familiar with Merrill's poetry and his place in the literary world as an important poet. For those who ARE familiar though....this collection provides plenty of great lines/quotes from his pen along with plenty of (mostly) good-hearted gossip about other famous poets in his circle of friends like Elizabeth Bishop and W.H. Auden.

Almost any collection of letters is going to include some rather mundane material, and that is here too...letters about dinner plans and house redecorations, etc. These can be skimmed of course. But Merrill was a brilliant writer, and I found plenty of deeply engaging reflections that make this book a must-have for Merrill aficionados. Here are just a few of my favorites:

"I get less political every minute-and being for anything less than friendship seems a terrible waste of human energy in a century of such lies and folly. Stay well. We all belong to the one world."

"Personally, I think the giving up of a civilizing glass of wine is going a shade too far."

"Such a pity when people phase out the idea of apprenticeship. It happens most among writers, the line of reasoning being 'Well, I've been using language ever since I was 18 months old, and I am never without things to say. Surely that entitles me to write some of it down and call it a poem?'"

"I think I know what the soul is. In childhood it is not to be distinguished from the body; this why children are always being watched with joy. In our maturity, the soul can be identified with the body we no longer have, the body of childhood that instructed us in pleasure and wisdom which we now call 'spiritual' because they are so clearly not within our physical capacities. (Thus it may be said without irony that the debauchee is 'searching for his soul'-he is trying to recapture the infinite sensuous receptivity of the little child."

[Fredrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I have been much distressed by the gradual lowering of the hemline in the shorts worn by basketball players […] In shorts like that, even a goodlooking dude becomes a NERD. I am writing you in hopes that you will encourage your favorite teams not to accept this awful new fashion.”
--Joking postcard (from Tucson) to Stephen Yenser, January 1995

“Dear Santa Clause please bring me a flash-light.”
—1932?, Southampton, NY

From James Merrill’s obit in NYT:
“He had been, he said in his memoir, rich since he was 5 ‘whether I liked it or not,’ and added that he was ‘as American as lemon chiffon pie.’"

James Merrill had a cameo as a doctor in the film "Lorenzo’s Oil," directed by George Miller.

[Alejandro Nanga · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me forever to finish this. While I enjoyed a lot of the letters in the compilation, and I feel very compelled by his way of writing and the things happening in his life; it felt slightly voyeuristic and uncomfortable at times.

It was a pleasant read during these 8 months.

[Rhea Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Merrill was still alive I’d write him a letter to tell him how much I loved this book.