Heavy tasks
undertaken with little likelihood of commensurate reward move me to admiration;
the work of careerists – never. One such hero is Ford Madox Ford. He published
more than eighty books, yes, and never had enough money, but in his final
project he exceeded previous accomplishments. When Ford started work on The March of Literature in 1937, he was sixty-three,
overweight and still feeling the effects of having been gassed twenty years
earlier, during World I. He had rheumatism and, since 1929, had suffered
several heart attacks. Ford spent eight months as writer in residence (then a
novel concept) at Olivet College in Michigan, giving him time to read, research
and write.
I read
Nicholas Delbanco’s Group Portrait: Joseph
Conrad, Stephen Crane, Ford Madox Ford, Henry James and H.G. Wells when it
was published in 1982. He chronicles the time at the turn of the twentieth
century when those six writers were neighbors, friends and sometimes collaborators
in East Sussex and Kent. In “An Old Man Mad About Writing” (Anywhere Out of the World: Essays on Travel,
Writing, Death, 2005), Delbanco returns to Ford. He tells us his earlier
book “was in large part powered by a desire to celebrate” the author of Parade’s End, whom he portrays as a
one-man literary catalyst.
The March of Literature is no dry textbook. It’s
inimitably Ford’s work, as personal as DNA. Delbanco says, “There’s an intimate
wrangling discursiveness here, as though the host of a party has buttonholed
guests, and it’s of no real consequence if they are distant or dead.” It ought
to be academic but reads like inspired conversation. Delbanco seems to be repaying a debt. He writes:
“On the
forced march to completion, Ford started work at five in the morning and
finished at seven at night. Years before, he had transcribed spoken utterance from
Conrad, and Henry James made of dictation a routine procedure, yet it still
beggars the imagination—beggars mine, at any rate—to think of anyone producing
so much scholarship so fast.”
Ford had
spent a lifetime internalizing literature. It was never merely a job. He published
his 900-page March of Literature in
1938 and died the following year, the task of a lifetime completed. In
conclusion, Delbanco writes of Ford: “He read and wrote and read. He wrote and
read and wrote.”
3 comments:
Thanks once again; another great post. I benefit from your efforts in some way nearly every day: sometimes inspiration, more often a reminder of my own insuperable laziness as compared to the writers you bring to life on my screen. Ford’s working to the point of what had to be exhaustion shows what dedication it takes to produce great writing. And It points out why so much that is produced today is worthless. I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving.
I echo Edward Bauer's sentiments. Patrick always enlightens, and for someone like me who knows next to nothing about literature, I marvel at Patrick's wisdom and am now curious about Ford. A real writer, but what of his life? I need to find a biography and read Delbanco's books as well.
I liked what Ford said about Pope:
"Writers are sometimes born before their age, sometimes they lag behind it; sometimes they are its very breath and essence. Sometimes their precocity is extravagant and for the time being they will reflect the colors of their youth. That was the case with Pope."
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