{"id":1380,"date":"2012-02-17T16:58:20","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T20:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1380"},"modified":"2013-10-16T21:13:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T01:13:44","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-september-17-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-september-17-1979\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: September 17, 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align: top; background: white; float: left;\"><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from Hall to McNair, September 17, 1979. Colby College Special Collections.\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/Hall-McNair-19790917-001-colby.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray; background: white;\" alt=\"Hall-to-McNair-09-17-1979\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/Hall-McNair-19790917-001-colby.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"background: white; padding-left: 30px;\">17 September 1979<br \/>\nWes McNair<br \/>\nN. Sutton, NH<\/p>\n<p>Dear Wes,<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s just forget about a reading. Nobody should read for $50.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Thin Man\u201d is just marvelous. I love it, and I think maybe<br \/>\nit is even one of your best. I have two suggestions, or one suggestion<br \/>\nand one query. The query is \u201cyearning,\u201d which seems to me a terribly<br \/>\ncorny word, a word from greeting cards, and very dangerous to use,<br \/>\nespecially so early in the poem. I wonder what you have thought about it &#8211;<br \/>\nif you have questioned it &#8211; if you think it might possibly be improved?<br \/>\nAnd on the other thing I feel more dogmatic: please remove the epigraph.<br \/>\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Everybody<\/span> in the world has heard this business about a thin man being<br \/>\ninside every fat man\u2026and therefore to use it as a epigraph is or appears<br \/>\nna\u00efve. I mean, the statement itself is as commonplace as \u201chot enough<br \/>\nfor you\u201d or \u201cit takes all kinds to make a world.\u201d If you had a poem<br \/>\nabout watermelons, you wouldn\u2019t have as an epigraph that watermelons<br \/>\nare ninety-eight per cent water\u2026or whatever. I mean to say, it has<br \/>\nthe status of sort of commonplace information.<\/p>\n<p>The poem exploits this commonplace information <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">perfectly<\/span>, and<br \/>\nwhen we come to the reference or allusion, within the poem, we are pre-<br \/>\ncisely ready for it &#8211; except if you have that epigraph there. In that<br \/>\ncase, it kills the surprise and spoils the poem. When I say that the<br \/>\npoem is superb, I mean without the epigraph. I really do think the<br \/>\nepigraph acts like a dog with a hundred eyes, or maybe a hundred sets<br \/>\nof jaws, guarding the entrance and preventing anybody from getting in.<\/p>\n<p>And it is a wonderful poem. What a superb ending.<\/p>\n<p>If you are going to be over this way, could you perhaps drop off<br \/>\nthe book by Jenny? Or mail it, as I mailed it to you, if you can not<br \/>\nget over.*<\/p>\n<p>Best as ever,<\/p>\n<p>Don<\/p>\n<p>*Or you could leave it with the C-S<br \/>\nreceptionist?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-1380\" data-postid=\"1380\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-1380 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] 17 September 1979 Wes McNair N. Sutton, NH Dear Wes, Let\u2019s just forget about a reading. Nobody should read for $50. \u201cThe Thin Man\u201d is just marvelous. I love it, and I think maybe it is even one of your best. I have two suggestions, or one suggestion and one query. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[803,596,42965,35504,42971],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1380"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9021,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions\/9021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}