The BURIED Book Club discussion

Evelyn Scott (January 17, 1893 – August 3, 1963) was an American novelist, playwright and poet. A modernist and experimental writer, Scott "was a significant literary figure in the 1920s and 1930s, but she eventually sank into critical oblivion."

She sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms Ernest Souza and Elsie Dunn.

She is completely buried now - there is almost nothing about her on the internet and almost all of her books are long out of print.

Precipitations (poems, 1920)
The Narrow House (novel, 1921)
Narcissus (novel, 1922)
Escapade (memoir, 1923)
The Golden Door (novel, 1925)
Ideals (stories, 1927)
Migrations (novel, 1927)
The Wave (novel, 1929)
Blue Rum (novel, 1930) under pseudonym E. Souza
A Calendar of Sin (novel, 1931)
Eva Gay (autobiographical novel, 1933)
Breathe Upon These Slain (novel, 1934)
Background in Tennessee (autiobiography, 1937)
Bread and a Sword (novel, 1937)
The Shadow of the Hawk (novel, 1941)

I am currently reading "The Wave" and am deeply impressed so far - she is a writer of genius, of that I have no doubt.

She was asked to write an introductory essay for Faulkner's Sound and Fury, which was blurbed as follows:

"THIS essay by Evelyn Scott, whose recent novel "The Wave" placed her among the outstanding literary figures of our time, has been printed in this form and is being distributed to those who are interested in Miss Scott's work and the writing of William Faulkner. "The Sound and the Fury" should place William Faulkner in company with Evelyn Scott. The publishers believe, in the issuance of this little book, that a valuable and brilliant reflection of the philosophies of two important American authors is presented to those who care for such things."

Faulkner repaid the complement with a statement which had me repeatedly banging my head against the wall:

Eleven years later, a very successful Faulkner was asked whether there were any good female writers. ''Well,'' he answered, ''Evelyn Scott was pretty good, for a woman.''

There is a biog here:

https://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/...

I have also tracked down this, which is a good read about The Wave:

https://johnacaseyjr.files.wordpress....

I think The Narrow House is on Gutenburg, but cannot vouch for its quality yet.

If The Wave carries on being as fantastic as it is at the 100 page mark you will have to put up with me pestering you all about it until she gets some more readers...

HOCH HOCH HOCH!!

Something in your throat?

Jonathan wrote: "Something in your throat?"

Bones and sinew. Get this corpse up!

nevermind...

http://dictionary.reverso.net/german-...!

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "Something in your throat?"

Bones and sinew. Get this corpse up!"

Apparently, from what I can discover, her buried status comes from the usual "experimental" + "woman" with the addition of "batshit crazy" + "not giving a fuck".

Plus from a couple of the reviews of The Wave, people seem to have bought it expecting a Civil War Novel like Gone with the Wind and were disappointed to discover it was fragmented and difficult and dense and long.

I will, i'm sure, be using all my powers of persuasion to get people reading her...

Jonathan wrote: "nevermind...
http://dictionary.reverso.net/german-...!"

Yeah. I guess it's a newer chant than I'd recollected.

One of the reasons? ...that she's not mentioned in Breaking the Sequence: Women's Experimental Fiction!!

But one of the reasons Friedman & Fuchs posit for the BURIAL of some female experimental writers is that they weren't organized. Like with CBR turning down her invite to join OULIPO. This brave lone writer position didn't exactly serve to get them the kind of attention that folks like Jamesy demanded with all his PR and hoopla and organization around getting his books into peoples' hands. But as your update suggests, especially regarding Scott here, she was in fact rather well connected. BURIED nonetheless.

people seem to have bought it expecting a Civil War Novel like Gone with the Wind and were disappointed to discover it was fragmented and difficult and dense and long.

I seem to have heard this before! About other books! Right there I guess is that danger of wrong=PR!

Did she ever get the Virago treatment? I'm still a bit rather perplexed when I see such low numbers on so many Virago editions. It's as if that first Resurrection didn't take.

nope - no Virago - My edition of The Wave was published by Louisiana State Press in 1996 and i think Escapade is published by someone...the rest are looooong OUP

I'll bite, Jonathan. This sounds worth going to some trouble for. Problem is: where would you find her - used bookstores? What are the chances...? :S

Maybe start with the book on Gutenberg? Ah, okay, found 3 but what a pity only her first three: Precipitations (poems, 1920), The Narrow House, and Narcissus...
Thank you!

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Sea...

thats how I get hold of these sorts of things!

Not sure how well the Gutenberg ones have been converted etc, which is always my concern with these things...But I think Narrow House may be a good place to start (not, I think, with her poems)

I've quickly opened all the Gutenberg books in my e-reader, and they all look pretty nicely typeset, though of course only an actual reading will reveal typoss. But to me it visually gives a good impression. Looks tidy. (Of course my standards might be different from other people's.)

According to Amazon, Evelyn Scott wrote The Consequences of Episodic Magma Supply for Mature Martian Volcanic Edifices, which sounds great...as well as A Beginner's Guide to Using Mason Jars to Prepare for Emergency Situations which might also be fun. With titles like that, her fiction just has to be experimental...dig it up, dig it up!

Review of The Wave from me here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Peter wrote: "A Beginner's Guide to Using Mason Jars to Prepare for Emergency Situations"

I've taken the liberty of separating these two authors. Standard procedure. No undue risks. The canning Scott now has two spaces betwixt fore-and aft- name; Evelyn Scott. OUR Scott is written conventionally with a single space; Evelyn Scott.

It would appear as though the little tikes bear book is indeed by OUR Scott? The Fourteen Bears in Summer and Winter

yes - she wrote the kids book (which is apparently much loved by some)

Jonathan wrote: "yes - she wrote the kids book (which is apparently much loved by some)"

Makes W&M look like a real bargain!

How did it take me so long to click this thread?! She does sound really fantastic, thanks Jonathan! I also see that the biographer of the only-lately-unburied Anna Kavan has also written a biography of Scott, also a promising nod.

So Escapade is fantastic, and my review is up.

I have added some more of her work to the GR database and have copies of Migrations and Calendar of Sin on order.

Sin looks particularly interesting as is about 1700 pages in length (split into two volumes but published together) and is therefore even longer than Women and Men. As it followed The Wave I am certainly keen to see how her prose and her experiments continue...

Jonathan wrote: "Calendar of Sin on order. "

In the US, abe has the affordable copies. amazon's are all pretty much $$$$.
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Searc...

and I see one copy is located in France.

yeah - i found a good looking set in Canada for about £25, which is great value - particularly as they still have their dust jackets...unfortunately the shipping cost is pretty nuts, but still worth it as far as I am concerned...

So I have my copy of A Calendar of Sin and will confirm its length at 1367 pages. Not bad!

First thing I will be reading is the biography, "Pretty Good for a Woman": The Enigmas of Evelyn Scott.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "So I have my copy of A Calendar of Sin and will confirm its length at 1367 pages. Not bad!

First thing I will be reading is the biography, [book:"Pretty Good for a Woman": The E..."

Excellent! Hope it goes well - I have no idea how good it will be, as there is so little out there about it, but I know from The Wave that she can write and likes pushing form and style etc in the ways we find interesting...

General Q for whoever hears ::

I just checked the Ellmann Joyce bio index for any listing of Scott -- nada! Anyone out there have a Faulkner bio and be willing to check the index? Curious to know if Faulknerians are willing to acknowledge her existence.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=A...

TO be honest, it seems like she is mentioned purely in terms of the Sound and Fury pamphlet

Somewhere is the Evelyn Scott--Emma Goldman correspondence (is it published?.... I think not. But it can be found at the International Institute for Social History in Amersterdam). On the second to last page of her auto-bio, Goldman says :

"Evelyn Scott was in the city and I spent some lovely hours with her. I had read and admired her Escapade years before we met. Our friendship began in London and was cemented by Evelyn’s letters, no less masterly than her literary work. We laughed to tears over the recollection of our recent meeting in Cassis, France. She had invited Sasha and me to dinner and we had arrived in the company of Peggy and Lawrence at four in the morning, hungry as wolves. Dazed with sleep, Evelyn had announced that she could offer us only coffee; not a scrap had been left from the sumptuous dinner. "
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/librar...

yes. I was aware of this connection and meant to point it out to you. Goldman and Dorothy Richardson were also friends, and corresponded...

Just finished the bio, "Pretty Good for a Woman": The Enigma of Evelyn Scott. I intend to add a few more words to my review tomorrow. But I'd like to recommend it to all SPADE=WIELDERS of those inter-war years. Kay Boyle is not the only BURIED name among that scene.