LETTERS FROM NORMAN SIMMS
Dr Norman Simms,
Associate Professor (emeritus) in the
Department of English at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, is a
Jewish academic who was born and educated in the United States and lived most
of his life in New Zealand. Unlike most of us, he has resisted the easy option
of choosing conventional standards and positions. He has several academic
publications to his credit that “shatter literary and scholarly conventions.”
These include Silence & Invisibility: A Study
of the Literatures of the Pacific, Australia, & New Zealand (1986), The Humming Tree (1992), Crypto-Judaism, Madness, and the Female Quixote: Charlotte
Lennox as Marrana in Mid-Eighteenth-Century England (2004), Festivals of Laughter, Blood & Justice in Biblical and
Classical Literature (2007), Alfred Dreyfus: Man, Milieu, Mentality &
Midrash (2012) etc. He also edited an
interdisciplinary journal Mentalities. We
stayed in touch for quite some time.
1.
The University of Waikato
Department of English
Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand
9 December 1993
Dear
Professor Singh:
Thank you
very much for your kind and flattering letter of 24 November, as well as for
the several copies and photocopies of your book of poetry.
I look
forward to reading through your poems this summer, now that our term is just
about over—and what a difficult year it has been! But I am not quite sure how you wish me to
help you, except perhaps in passing on the books to the person in our small
department who teaches Indian Literature.
You
certainly have my sympathy when you speak of being outside of various literary coteries and poetic
establishments, but then, though I face the same problems, we ought to be able
to say that it is not from such mutual admiration societies that real
literature arises. Prestige and
commercial success, yes, alas do tend to be where the individuals cluster to
control access to the main journals and write the reviews of each other’s
works; so we are doomed—or choose—to be on the outside, or in the margins, to
always longingly look from a distance at the others. Quite frankly, I don’t think it is a matter
of projecting oneself vigorously or of imposing oneself onto apparently
successful in-groups. It is also a
matter of personality and familiarity. I
can say for myself that I don’t fit in with any local groups and am, by
temperament, a perpetual outsider, always more at home with a small number of
correspondents all over the world than with the drinking clubs and
back-slapping bands.
I sometimes
think that, yes, perhaps if I had not gone into exile, it would have been
different, if I had stayed in America, or New York, or moved to a big city in
Europe when I was in my twenties, if…if…if…. No, I think no matter where I was
I would be a loner, an eccentric, a man who stands on the boundaries or beyond
them, and, yes, probably this is what I most enjoy and want. Pardon me, but your letter does seem to call for a bit of personal and intimate
response.
So let me
ask, if it is not too impertinent, because it is a question which I have to ask
myself all the time. Do you, really and truly, in your heart of hearts, want to
be a part of the inner group? For me, I
have to answer in a complex way: yes, I do, but not on their terms, not in New
Zealand, where I never feel at home, and probably now it is too late to inject myself into the sophisticated circles
of Europe or America—so what does one do?
Probably
this does not help you at all. The
situation in India must be very different from that which I experience around
myself and dream of in the circles of London or
Paris or New York. To me, when you present yourself as a published
poet, a professor and head of a large department in a major Indian university,
I wonder what it is that you are seeking? Do you have a family, a loving wife,
children, other relatives, friends around you?
What is it in life that one seeks?
I am restless, isolated, alienated, my children grown up and flown far
away, my wife ill and dissatisfied with her life, a job which gives little in
the way of material rewards, lack of recognition of my talents and interests,
etc. etc. – yet I receive letters like yours and I wonder if perhaps we are
kindred spirits, and that we should be thankful that now, at the end of the 20th
century, it is possible for a few people like ourselves can communicate and
make our own surrogate community…
Well, this
is perhaps not the letter you expected. Sorry about that.
Yours sincerely,
Norman Simms
2.
25 March
1997
Dear RK
I have
finally received your letter of 8 January which you posted to Israel, and as
you can now see I have returned—without any enthusiasm—to New Zealand. Why and how is a longish story. That I did not write to you during the year and a half I was
there is part of that rather confused and difficult narrative of events.
Thank you
for asking me to help you with the special issue of a journal devoted to New
Zealand literature. Ten or fifteen years
ago not only would I have jumped at the chance, but would have known quite a
bit… although even back then I was never part of the mainstream and quite
isolated. Nevertheless, there were many
writers—poets as novelists—whom I could have called on; now they are either
moved away, given away the writing career, or dead. Given the changes in this society and my
alienation, I thought you would have realized that I neither know nor care
about what goes on here, to tell the truth.
But I have
passed your letter to a colleague who is the specialist in New Zealand
literature here at Waikato. Sarah
Schieff seems interested, but cautiously so: she will soon be writing to you
and seeking further clarification of just what it is exactly you are planning,
what backing you already have, and where her work would be particularly placed.
For myself,
though stuck here, my sights are overseas, and even my writing, whether
scholarly or creative, like my publishing activities is directed at other kinds
of audiences. It seems odd and rather
archaic that you should have to say you have no prejudice “for academic critics
or university dons”, when you are
certainly one yourself. In a similar
way, to say that you would be interested in women writers just rings
hollow, when virtually all important
writers in this country have been and still are women.
Good luck on
your project.
All best
wishes
Norman Simms
3.
16
April 1997
My Dear Friend,
Thanks for your letter of the 7th and the various
enclosures which I have begun to distribute on your behalf.
I think Sarah passed your request for help on to Alan Riach
or Ralph Crane – and Ralph is really our “Indian specialist” in the
department. Alan basically teaches
Scottish literature. Perhaps someone will take the bait and get involved in
your project.
As I said before, even before I left for Israel, I
have very little interest in New Zealand
or New Zealand literature, and that my experience here and all my efforts to
make something of a literary impact have soured me greatly. My efforts now, aside from the scholarly side
of my career, will be directed towards Israel, and I am editing more little
journals and booklets of Israeli writers in English. Still I could hardly call myself as a participant
in “the scene”. That is not how I
work…or live. The “fact” that I have to
live here for God knows how much longer does not mean that I have to like it or
try to be involved, does it?
You misunderstand me if you think my departure from
Israel was because of the “volatile socio-political tension” there, not even
because of the daily dangers of terrorism. No, it is simply because my wife
became ill and returned here and refuses to go away from the children and her
friends again. Especially because I
disagree so much with the current government and its policies in Israel the
desire to be back there is strong: there is a need for the secular, liberal
voice to be there and to vote. Besides, in a way you may not be able to
understand, the reality is, I believe, that Israel is my home, my homeland, and that given the
recent history of the world there is no one we Jews can ever trust again—no
one! So even if I don’t live in Israel,
I can still live for Israel and do my work with my sights there.
Which is not to detract or diminish from my interests
in other things, of course. It is just
that New Zealand does not fit in. This
society has become sicker and sicker over the years, and my sense of alienation
stronger and stronger. The social
democratic and the humanist ideals no longer exist, or are so completely
distorted that it would take decades to restore.
I am not a specialist in Indian literature, and only
dabbled more or less in a few other Third World/Commonwealth/Post-colonialist
literatures, and will do from time to time still as the opportunities
arise. For the past few years I have
been acting as external examiner for several small Indian universities reading
theses, and that seems to be at the moment my strongest tie, little as it is,
with India.
It is hard to be isolated and alienated, but you have
always written to me that you also feel cut off from the heart of things by
your position in the ISM. But you seem
to have accomplished much and to have the respect of your colleagues, which is
no small matter.
All the best regards,
Norman Simms
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