NOTES OF A USED AND OUT-OF-PRINT BOOK DEALER

Issue 23. Monday, June 4, 2002

Continental Books publishes this free newsletter for customers and interested others. The content drifts with attention and mood, but it continues to spiral the book and its associations. This issue we call attention to poetry, espionage and an older style of journalism. Visualize civilization as a mineral deposit and the book as a drill. Reading then is a form of mining. Dig away.

1. A poem on American poetry by Anonymous
2. Soviet espionage in WWII
3. Augustan Reprint Society reprints

POETRY. Pop a poet for pepperoni pizza

Language there beyond no tricks
High, dense, lush, dredged spare
Line beat, breath or broken
A metric or a rhyme, aber nix
Sounds similar. A bell jar

Aloud, graphic, a picture plush
Philosophic, funny, a dirge
Sadsackish dog-ger-el.
A timp, a timp, a timpani mas.

A rite, a song, a sing along
Brief or long, a tale surreal.
Tangled, unintelligible

Over Will Carlos, old Ez,
Charles Olson and such better makes
Mid century I guess, more or less.
Man! A pack American.

In the mid-20th century, American poetry temporarily became publicly accepted and popular, found an almost mass audience. A large number of writers, skilled and original in their craft, issued cheap editions of their works and, even more importantly, stood and recited their latest pieces before crowds of devotees. The moment was based on the better makers of the earlier part of the century, mainly William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound who had been classmates at the University of Pennsylvania. Pound, an expatriate and, unfortunately, a pro-fascist during the troublesome times of the early 1940's, dragged the line from rhyme to varied tempo and modeled the idea of the poet as an independent, egocentric voice and career free of the conventions. In general, except for sound and imagery, his poems and essays are not easily accessible. He appeals to a peculiar elite. One needs the guidance of a specialist reader to understand. Williams went the other way, toward clarity. A full-time gynecologist, practicing in Rutherford, New Jersey, he too has a complex level which requires study to reach, but more readers catch his meaning unaided

You can get an idea of the range of the singing of the era in Donald M. Allen (Editor) THE NEW AMERICAN POETRY 1945-1960. It is very vigorous and non-academic, avoiding imposed formality and arid pettiness. Yet it is clearly a trade with a tradition and a technique, and a liberating trend.

Our poetry books are hidden among the other arts. See http://www.continentalbooks.com/arts

The Tangled Web in WWII

A spy is a two face. More than usual you have to discount his or her messages. "I love you," from your spy lover and, boy, you're in trouble; prepare to be left to sing the blues in the night, a hooie da hooie. The doubled spy is worse. Everybody has a piece of him and he them. Each face he presents is a negation of another face of another face of another. He wakes up in the morning, or in the afternoon or night, for who can predict, and right away he asks, "Who am I?"

"Don't ask," he sometimes answers.

Espionage is like news, a spying out, a looking, a searching for the hidden fact. Once discovered it is hurried back to spy central to become another secret in another file. And so you go.

Do they have the bomb, the gas, the weed? Are they rational? What is their intension? Will they skate on thin ice? Swim the Yang-tsi River? Does their pitcher have a sore arm? Where will they attack? Where hide? What flavor do they favor?

How can we not be enamored of the novels and biographies that we presume give us the shadow of the real thing? Who can turn away from the mystery, the adventure, the complex codes, invisible inks, microdots, the unexpected footfall in the empty street, the knock on the door in the deepness of night, the unanswered shot echoing?

Then there is the counterspy guarding the gate. There is disinformation. The false fact peddled as true. The dirty tricks. The convolutions within convolutions. There is the client, the ultimate user: Scanning the limited edition of one copy of one page or the abstracted article from the encyclopedia or the gossip columns of the daily press. Is his mind elastic enough to snap up a new idea?

Talk about twists and turns: In WWII the British, building on the legacy of the Poles, have broken the Enigma code and can read, with a little luck, the daily traffic of the German Army. This achievement is a big secret. Can't tell the Russians but want to give them the relevant info. But the Russians as usual are suspicious. "This stuff is too good to be true." Meanwhile the Russians have two major networks in Europe: "The Red Orchestra" in Belgium and "Dora" in Switzerland. And the Brits have penetrated Dora. The Swiss have penetrated Dora. Meanwhile Moscow Center has penetrated London Center and into the arid heart of New Mexico.

The Battle of the Kursk Salient in 1943, biggest land battle of the big bang war: Enigma churns true and a ribbon of solid fact and analysis wends its way from the German horse's mouth via radio waves to England where it is decoded, quickly cured and shipped on to Dora and to Moscow Center to Stalin's ear and accepted and the Russians prevail.

The war nearing its end, Paris liberated. The Red Orchestra has been broken, all tortured and dead musicians except the leader who has become a singer for the Germans. He later claims he gave them a false tune. Moscow Center calls back Dora's two heads. Both are compromised. One a double agent, Allan Foote, the other loyal but a suspected embezzler, Sandor Rado. Big dramatic moment in a Cairo hotel room (They are going to Moscow the long way) when the two men lay their cards on the table. Rado, the looser, leaves all his belongings except the usual clothes on his back and disappears into the unfamiliar Egyptian night.

But who can trust the winner? Moscow center assigns him to monitor the fascist circles of Argentina and points south in South America. (According to the latest report from Chile this slimy Nazi finca still continues today.) But he opts out in Berlin. Meanwhile his old British boss (Admiral Hugh Sinclair of Z Organization) has died leaving records in disarray if still extant. The only reward is a clerical job in the British bureaucracy. Dispirited, physically run down, emotionally kaput, Foote dies young.

Don't take my word. Look it up.

Hohne, Heinz. CODEWORD: "DIREKTOR" about Leopold Trepper and the Red Orchestra written by a German journalist on the staff of Der Spiegel.

Trepper, Leopold. THE GREAT GAME. THE STORY OF THE RED ORCHESTRA written by the honcho spy himself after many years in a Soviet prison.

Read, Anthony and David Fisher. OPERATION LUCY. Written by BBC producers specializing in spy stories.

We have a few spy titles in stock: See http://www.continentalbooks.com/espionage

Oldies but goodies

In 17th and 18th centuries England, writers would publish their essays as pamphlets and distribute them at reasonable cost to the reading public. Today these articles would probably appear in magazines or scholarly journals or on web sites. The Augustan Reprint Society, based at UCLA, has reprinted facsimiles of a few hundred of these old essays, poems, and plays in a series of pamphlets of a uniform size (8*" x 5*"). Each is introduced by an informed academic who places the work in context and establishes its significance. The subjects are usually literary, political, or religious, sometimes all three. Be warned. This material is an acquired taste. No easy apple off a tree here.

We have some twenty-odd assorted copies left. Access http://www.continentalbooks.com/augustan

And so amigos we reach the fork in the road. It will seem so long until we connect again. And even longer if you unsubscribe with an email to unsubscribe@continentalbooks.com Eager for another round? Great. Bring your friends, have them email subscribe@continentalbooks.com No message required in either case.

Your comments and suggestions to alkatz@continentalbooks.com

Alvin Katz copyright 2002