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November 15, 2002
Front-Page
News
Bohemian Groan
and More A nostalgic look at New York City's Greenwich
Village as a center for arts and literature—or, more accurately,
for painters and writers—from the early twentieth century
through the 1960s has left Christopher Benfey unimpressed. Reviewing
Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village, The American Bohemia,
1910–1960 (Simon and Schuster, 2002) in the November
11 issue of the New Republic, the MHC English professor
wrote that the lengthy tome was heavy on minutiae—including
the sexual practices, drinking habits, and culinary preferences
of various luminous and subluminous figures from the old neighborhood—and
light on delving into the many truly fascinating artistic and
literary figures who lived and worked in Greenwich Village: Edna
St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Dreiser, Eugene 0'Neill, Jackson
Pollock, and Van Wyck Brooks, to name a few. For Benfey, the chapters
on the Village-connected poets are a prime example of one problem
with longtime Village Voice editor and drama critic Ross
Wetzsteon's book. "He [Wetzsteon] fills his narrative
with poets . . . but there is almost no poetry," Benfey writes.
"In the twenty-two page chapter on (Delmore) Schwartz, eight
lines of poetry appear, and in the twenty pages on Hart Crane
only two lines, and terrible ones at that." According to
Benfey, literary appreciations of bygone days have been and can
be vital works, therefore "If Republic of Dreams awakens
a hunger for better books in a similar vein, it will have served
its modest part." Benfey has a number of other publications
just out or set to appear. His essay titled "Emily Dickinson
and the American South" is in The Cambridge Companion
to Emily Dickinson, edited by Wendy Martin and recently published
by Cambridge University Press. His annual look at art books of
the year comes out December 8 in the New York Times Book Review.
Finally, a "roots" piece Benfey wrote on taking his
eleven-year-old son and his father to Berlin (the city his father
left at the age of eleven) will appear in the winter 2002 issue
of Travel and Leisure Family.
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