Yup, why I used the word.
The bloom is now, a couple of decades later, definitely off that particular
peach, perhaps because the house, off-limits for so long, is now available
for inspection. Mostly for tourists and dewy-eyed academics, who I guess I
don't count as locals (in those towns you're not local unless several
generations of your family's been there). Did the glamor ever extend, for
those who know it best, to the town itself? Which was more my point. A 19th
century place imagined by outsiders, I suspect, without horseshit.
Another example: I spent the Summer that "The Sound of Music" opened in of
all places Salzburg. The film bombed in Austria generally, and uniquely,
but was sustained on tourist attendance locally. So here's a case of
travellers to an exotic place retreating from the actual to a dark theater
for a prescription renewal for their rose-colored glasses.
I didn't see the film, by the way--for all I know it's better than
Salzburger gnockerl (I'm sure that's misspelled). But I did see High Noon
dubbed into Danish in Copenhagen once.
Probably America's best writer to write history was Francis Parkman. It was
a long time ago, and some of his multivolume _History of the French in
North America_ is of course outdated, both as to fact and attitude, but
much of it holds up. One of its great charms is that Parkman made a point
of trekking the backwoods routes he describes--the doings of the long dead
contextualized within the actul. What Longfellow called "the forest
primeval" loses a bit of its mythic luster when, as Parkman does, one puts
the black flies, mosquitoes, ticks, bogs and windfalls back in.
Digression: "windfall." What, lumber that doesn't need to be felled? In the
deep forest it means the misfortune, sometimes deadly, of unexpected
obstacles.
"Black flies." If you don't know what they are count your blessings.
Mark
At 04:01 PM 1/6/2001 -0500, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>Without wanting to sound like I'm generalizing about the Irish
>(again), I found Katie Donovan's recent _Irish Times_ piece on
>Amherst and ED's house rather gooey-eyed--but no more so than
>the attitude of many a local particpant in the Bride of Armrest
>cult, or so it seemed to me when I lived there as a UMASS grad
>student (mid-'70s through early '80s). During those years, Julie
>Harris came to town to premier her new Broadway-aimed vehicle,
>_Belle of Amherst_, directed by Charles Nelson Reilly, whose
>drunken efforts to charm the Amherst College trustees and their
>wives at the reception following the premier didn't keep the play
>from bombing there, although that probably had more to do with
>Julie Harris's playing ED like a Carson McCullers character.
>
>During the first few years I lived in Amherst, Mrs. Hampson,
>the irascible old housekeeper at the Evergreens (Austin and Sue
>Dickinson's house next door to the Manse), was still alive,
>which tended to keep a lid on the cult, I suspect, since rumor
>had it that even the College trustees went in fear of her caustic
>tongue. A fearless grad student once called up Mrs. Hampson in
>search of inside dope for a seminar paper and made the mistake
>of opening the conversation with an inquiry about the old woman's
>health, to which Mrs. Hampson snapped (before slamming the phone
>down), "Not so good that I'll stand here talking to you about it!"
>
>After she died, both houses--which were already shrines for literati
>and townspeople alike--together formed a mini-theme park run by the
>College, and it became a badge of honor even among some of the most
>rigorous ED scholars at UMASS to be accepted as docents and lead the
>tours there. The Manse also became the coolest place to hold one's
>wedding in some circles, although the rooms are so tiny that anyone
>holding a big wedding there had to do it outdoors. (And too bad if
>it rained because tents were forbidden by the trustees.)
>
>"Glamour" is, to me, exactly the word for it--for our enchantment
>with literary sites especially--and it does after all derive from
>_glaymor_, meaning exactly that.
>
>Candice
>
>
>>Poetry has always been the bearer of a lot of mythic freight, the
>>accidental, which is what I'm talking about (what accrues to difference) as
>>well as the intentional. I lived a few miles outside Amherst for several
>>years during two parts of my life. I would imagine that British and Irish
>>readers set Emily Dickinson in an imagined world. I don't think I do,
>>except to the extent that the past is always an imagined world. Charles
>>Marshall, on the other hand, is swimming in myth.
>>
>>Just some thoughts.
>>
>>Mark
>
>
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