Erik Donald France to Wallace Fowlie, March 26, 1992

[Though earlier I'd donated to Duke letters from Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) to me, more recently, in sorting through my files, I came across photocopies of at least some of the letters I wrote to him. Here's another one of them, from when I lived on Spruce Street. For his other letters, please see Wallace Fowlie Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Here's a link to the collection guide.]       

                                    Philadelphia, Pa.

                                    Thursday, March 26^th 1992

Dear Wallace,

I don’t know who’s been busier, me taking classes, or you teaching them, & giving lectures. However, Arthur Rimbaud & Jim Morrison always remain in mind, & where they are involved, I always have extra time & energy. So let me assure you, I’d love to be a reader for you, whatever you desire! 

There is a spectacular book store here, Borders Bookshop, which is two stories high & always full of people, It’s a good place to browse & keep up with literature & criticism.

A few weeks ago, I picked up an excellent history of the Punk Rock movement, England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and Beyond by Jon Savage (St. Martin’s Press, 1992), which provides additional evidence of Rimbaud’s & other French poets’ influence on rock and punk artists. In addition to translated quotations of Rimbaud, there is for instance the specific example of the band Television, an early band influence at the outbreak of Punk in the mid-1970s.

Richard Meyers and Tom Miller dropped out of school in Virginia, went to New York, and took the names Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine.  They opted for rock because, Hell says, “all the people whose work I was interested in, the self-conscious, twisted aestheticism of the French 19^th century, were not the popular ground for the writing of the time.” (p. 88) They picked elements of fashion as well, which inspired the New York punk scene, which in turn influenced English groups.

I hope you’re fully recovered from your cold. Many people in class are ill, too. Only today did we have a first feel of fresh spring air. The city is a fascinating place for graduate study, but it’s hardly a health spa. . .

Most of my reading of late has been devoted to class-related studies, primarily on European & U.S. 19^th century histories of the aristocracy and officer corps. The latter group is as far from the work of individual poets as one can imagine, and yet it’s still interesting by the very outrageous contrast. I recall Proust’s comments on his military service through the thoughts of Marcel, which in turn reminds me of E. A. Poe’s bittersweet experiences in the Army and at West Point. (Poe lived here for a time; I have yet to visit his house, now a museum, up on Spring Garden).

Then there is Appollinaire [Guillaume Apollinaire], and his strange acceptance of fighting in the Great War. My feelings at the time might have been closer to the Dadaists in Zurich, or even to the wild ravings of Céline and Hasek. [Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Jaroslav Hašek]. The war seems completely insane from the vantage point of 1992. But then, we’ve in many ways, as a society, hardly moved beyond it. The world is still quite full of nationalistic madness.

Still no word on The Doors Complete? Since JFK, there hasn’t been much more comment on The Doors, which is strange really. Critics and indeed many of today’s youth have negative feelings about it because of the drugs & drug use shown. Today’s youth seems to be fixated more on Government-approved cigarettes and alcohol, and yet it was clearly alcohol that did Morrison in, both artistically and physically. That was part of Stone’s mytho-biography as well, for those who wishes to see it. The film was hardly a glorification of drug use.

Most of my friends, including my sisters, found the film inspiring of the artistic process, an expressionistic rendering of Morrison’s losing struggle with the destructive as well as creative forces in his being. He succumbed to flesh & blood weaknesses. But his struggle was not a meaningless one. He, if not as forcefully and heroically as Rimbaud, did share some of Rimbaud’s artistic imperative.

Why indeed hasn’t someone made a mytho-biography of Rimbaud? Perhaps that’s coming in the wake of his centenary. But such a film would have to be miraculously innovative, in order to get at Rimbaud’s poetics. Maybe Werner Herzog could begin such a work, a fractured first look inspired by the poetry alone, not a soap opera of his relationship with Verlaine. Someone should try. Your Rimbaud-Morrison work may inspire someone to try it. Think of that, next time you look out at an audience like the one at Charlottesville. Certainly, if the recent films inspired by W. S. Burroughs and Kafka can be made, a Rimbaud film can at least be attempted.

Well, Wallace, I hope all is well with you & that the semester is proceeding as hoped. Mine is already lurching into its final stretch, & I will be finished in early May. I may come down to North Carolina for a short while. But will spend most of the summer here. I’ll let you know. Let me know if you want me to read your Morrison segment. I look forward to the possibility with great excitement!

Take good care of yourself.

                                                      As Ever

                                                           Erik