Sunday, September 5
Dear Bob,
A little more time seems to have elapsed since your last epistle than I thought
(it doesn’t only seem to... it jolly well has, unless we go into the
illusory aspect of time, which I think we won’t just now). Anyway...
as to your suggestion that I come a day earlier... it has thrown things into
chaos here but at this point I think I can say that if it means all that
much to you, I will do so. This may mean you will receive a bundle of galley
proofs to hold for my arrival... if so, please do. If not, I shall have them
with me and shall be forced to retire to some secluded rendezvous from which
low growling sounds will emerge every so often as I wrestle with typographical
errors and wonder why the heck I said that when I so obviously meant this.
If your Ancient Mentor is willing
to come all the way from Rockford, Ill. To meet me, it is the
least I can do to go meet him, and I hope I live up to
any expectation he may cherish but seems doubtful in view of the advance
publicity I’m getting. Unless I haul up to the airport in a golden
chariot propelled by sixty snow-white swans, I shall probably disappoint
you all, and fourteen of my swans are already moulting.
I can tolerate Ibsen
and Mahler... I adore Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and them sort of guys but
I am not too thrilled by modern
music (except maybe some of it) or the sort of play where people
sit around in their undershirts making fraught remarks while
the lights turn them from dark green to livid magenta. I like
museums. I have no great yen for cutesy gift shops. I do not
know who does the cover art for my paperbacks but agree they
are striking... had not thought to badger the publisher for
the originals but why not? So much for aesthetics. I think my
flight
arrives around noontime on Saturday the 9th of, note, OCT.
but will let you know definitely when my travel agent gives me
the
schedule.
I shall stick to my original plan to leave on Wednesday because
if I don’t everything will get fouled up, but you must
not feel you have to entertain me all that time. I find the son
of an old friend is now living in Minneapolis with his wife,
whom I have never met, and I want to look them up sometime during
my visit. Whether they want me to, of course, remains to be seen.
Will you please ask Jeff if he has worked out any sort of
plan for our activities, so that I will know what clothes
to bring?
It he hasn’t, I’ll just bring what I’d have
brought anyway, no doubt. Have you any idea what the weather
will be by then? (You don’t have to answer this right away...
any time between now and then will be fine... well, now and almost
then)
My neighbor got stuck in a blizzard in Minneapolis last
winter and takes a dim view of this expedition... he
talks darkly
of mukluks, parka, and a set of snow chains... but I
have a feeling
these would not be altogether de rigeur in early October.
Peter and I are down to the finals, and I have laid down
a stern rule that I CANNOT go to Minneapolis unless
the book is finished,
so it will be. I hope to have the first draft all done
by the
end of this week and all the rewriting... which in
fact is almost done, too, as I’ve been doing it when my brain wasn’t
functioning creatively, which it to say most of the time... by,
as I meant to say, the end of September. So I deserve a holiday
by then, and am looking forward to it...
EAGERLY,
Charlotte
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