Dear Editor
Dear Editor Verbal Rights Harvey D. Shapiro seems to me much too kind in yielding to his challenger on the use of the word "greaser" and in apologizing to any reader offended by the term ("Dear...
...Perhaps an upswing in your budget will enable you to expand The New Leader's format...
...New York City Jacques Barzun Simon John Simon first endeared himself to me by defending Women's Lib and Gay Lib on the Dick Cavett television show...
...Jarrell wrote "learn to have families again," not "learn to love" them...
...Sue Gould My warmest congratulations to John Simon for his wonderful performance on Bandy...
...Has anybody apologized for depriving us all of the word "gay" or for making us halt and backtrack when we say "trip...
...He was even better on his return appearance, deflating author Erich Segal...
...When everybody feels free to manhandle the common tongue, the need for apology vanishes along with the meaning of words...
...Gass deplores, and had I caught the error in time, the sentence would still have read "To suggest that one can learn to have families again' from a work of fiction is, in Gass' view, to falsify both the intention and the achievement of art...
...di Capua for pointing out my curious substitution of love for have...
...Bell goes on to say: "To suggest that one can 'learn to love families again' from a work of fiction is, in Gass' view, to falsify both the intention and the achievement of art...
...Bell makes her point on the basis of a misquotation...
...And who began calling the unregulated New York taxis "gypsy cabs...
...Hilda K. Adel Please find enclosed my check for a subscription to your magazine...
...Although each issue is anything but lengthy, I still savor every page...
...His criticisms are both enlightening and dependable...
...Mine is what is called today a rational, consistent position...
...I certainly hope so...
...The merciless activity of John Simon's pen must be evident at regular intervals...
...I hope the Gypsies, an ancient people of noble traditions, will soon rise in their wrath and demand an apology from Mayor Lindsay...
...I think everyone who saw the TV show would agree that Otto Preminger only proved himself a boor...
...Until then?¬I will continue to read Simon's reviews in the library...
...But he carries his trouvaille too far...
...The New Leader is not easy to find on newsstands in Chicago, so it would appear that only by subscribing could I read Simon's reviews on a regular basis...
...Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y...
...All letters sent to me at Nuffield College, Oxford OX1 INF, will be acknowledged, copied and in due course returned, and no extracts will be published without the recipient's permission...
...There is one condition to my becoming a steady customer, however...
...It is gratifying to know that there are those who appreciate the light--harsh as it may sometimes be--he casts on the darkness...
...Unfortunately, Mrs...
...di Capua for pointing of the late Hugh Gaitskell...
...New York City Michael di Capua Pearl K. Bell replies: I am grateful to Mr...
...It is the didactic view of fiction that Mr...
...As a college student, I don't have a lot of money, but I will subscribe as soon as possible...
...Compared with these, "the grease" and "greaser" are long-established technical terms having nothing to do with minorities of foreign extraction...
...If any of your readers have letters from him in their possession, I should be most grateful to be allowed to see them...
...While he prides himself on his national power, Preminger's comportment on camera suggests that he is nothing more than a commercial hack...
...Mrs...
...However, if you happen to have an introductory offer where new subscribers receive an autographed photo of Simon, I shall subscribe immediately...
...Park Forest, 111...
...Gaitskell I am grateful to Mr...
...Kent, Ohio Phillip D. Greenberg Department of Geography Kent Slate University Bell In her review of William H. Gass' Fiction and the Figures of Life ("Fiction in a Vacuum," NL, March 22), Pearl K. Bel) quotes Randall Jarrell's introduction to The Man Who Loved Children as follows: it "knows as few books have ever known--knows specifically, profoundly, exhaustively--what a family is: if all mankind had been reared in orphan asylums for a thousand years, it could learn to love [italics added--M.C.I families again by reading The Man Who Loved Children...
...I just bought Simon's previous book, Private Screenings, and have finished reading almost all of his reviews in the magazine for the past year...
...Oxford, England P. M. Williams...
...Dear Editor Verbal Rights Harvey D. Shapiro seems to me much too kind in yielding to his challenger on the use of the word "greaser" and in apologizing to any reader offended by the term ("Dear Editor," NL, April 19...
...New York City Maria Jakosalem I would like to add my voice to that of Miriam Brumer ("Dear Editor," NL, March 8) and Malcolm R. McDonald ("Dear Editor," NL, March 22) in saying, "Thank God for a writer like John Simon, who has the courage of his convictions about the present state of our culture...
...I had never seen The New Leader before, but if critic Simon is any indication of the quality of the magazine, then it must be excellent indeed, and I certainly should be reading it...
...My point was based not on the misquoted love but on the correctly quoted learn...
Vol. 54 • May 1971 • No. 9
