{"id":966,"date":"2012-01-19T16:44:30","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T20:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=966"},"modified":"2013-12-09T16:34:54","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T20:34:54","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-june-29-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-june-29-1978\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: June 29, 1978"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Front-McNair-to-Hall-6-29-1978\"<\/a>\"Back-McNair-to-Hall-6-29-1978\"<\/a>\"Front-McNair-to-Hall-6-29-1978\"<\/a>\"Back-McNair-to-Hall-6-29-1978\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

Postmarked
\nJune 29, 1978<\/p>\n

Dear Don & Jane \u2013<\/p>\n

As you have already discovered, the
\nman on the front of the card is myself,
\nmounted and dressed in C.U.C.
\nacademic regalia, accepting the
\n\u201cwhite horn\u201d award for my lectures
\non sexuality in American culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut seriously, folks\u201d \u2013 I am still
\nworking on the translation of N.
\nParra\u2019s \u201cChristo de Elqui\u201d book
\nThough I have begun to doubt the
\nworth of the project. I have gone
\nthrough it now almost 3 times,
\neach trip w\/ a different translator,
\nand the thing just doesn\u2019t seem that
\nimpressive. Since \u201canti-poetry\u201d goes
\nback at least as far as dada,
\nthe book cannot claim to be original,
\nso it had better extend the
\n\u201canti-poetic\u201d mode in some interesting<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

way. I\u2019m not sure that it does this.<\/p>\n

Briefly speaking, Parra\u2019s book \u2013 whose full
\ntitle is Sermones Y Predicas del Christo<\/span>
\n de Elqui<\/span> is a sort of found poem, which
\nfeatures the life\/works of an actual evangelist
\nof the late 1920\u2019s in Chile. In fact, the
\nman was pretty much crackers. Deriving
\nmany of his<\/span> \u201cChristo\u2019s\u201d Sermons (each
\nof the book\u2019s poems is a sermon or [preachment?])
\nfrom the real man\u2019s own words, Parra
\ncreates a speaker who sounds alternately
\nlike a prophet and a lunatic. Parra says
\nabout his Christo : \u201cSometimes I am his
\nventriloquist, sometimes he is my ventriloquist
\nand sometimes we both talk together.\u201d (We
\nare left to question whether the ultimate
\nventriloquist in this arrangement is \u201cGod
\nHimself\u201d.) Seems interesting stuff, no
\ncierto? \u2013 This in spite of echoes of Beckett,
\nIonesco, Duchamps, etc. If it worked, the poem
\nmight offer a rich parody of the Christ
\nmyth, engaging its readers in a critical
\nevaluation of the meaning\/relevance of Christianity.<\/p>\n

But at this point what one might say
\nabout<\/span> the work is more interesting than the work \u2013<\/p>\n

Back August 25, 1978. Look forward to
\nseeing you both —<\/p>\n

Saludos,<\/p>\n

Wes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

A note from McNair about this letter:<\/strong><\/em><\/span> Eventually a chill set in between me and Nicanor Parra. After our first, enthusiastic, meeting, he began to distrust my method of translation, done with the help of native speakers, and I became less enamored of his poetry, as my comment about the Cristo de Elqui poem at the close of this letter implies.<\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Click image to view] Postmarked June 29, 1978 Dear Don & Jane \u2013 As you have already discovered, the man on the front of the card is myself, mounted and dressed in C.U.C. academic regalia, accepting the \u201cwhite horn\u201d award for my lectures on sexuality in American culture. \u201cBut seriously, folks\u201d \u2013 I am still […]<\/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":[35316,35504,35505,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966"}],"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=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10901,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/10901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}