The 40s: The Story of a Decade

753 Pages·2014·8.11 MB·English

by  The New Yorker Magazine

Copyright © 2014 by The New Yorker Magazine
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Simone Massoni
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC, a
Penguin Random House Company, New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
All pieces in this collection, except as noted, were originally published in The New Yorker.
The publication dates are given at the beginning or end of each piece.
Letter reprinted by permission of The Shirley Jackson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
The 40s: the story of a decade / The New Yorker; edited by Henry Finder
with Giles Harvey; introduction by David Remnick.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-679-64479-8
eBook ISBN 978-0-679-64480-4
1. United States—History—1933–1945. 2. United States—History—1945–1953. 3. United States—Social
life and customs—20th century. 4. United States—Social customs—1933–1945. 5. United States—Social
customs—1945–1953. 6. United States—In literature. 7. New Yorker (New York, N.Y.: 1925). I. Finder,
Henry. II. Harvey, Giles. III. New Yorker (New York, N.Y.: 1925). IV. New Yorker (New York, N.Y.:
1925).
E806.f66 2014
973.917—dc23 2013047082
www.atrandom.com
FIRST EDITION
Book design by Simon M. Sullivan
v3.1
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction · David Remnick
PART ONE · THE WAR
A Note by George Packer
Notes and Comment: September 2, 1939 · E. B. WHITE
Paris Postscript (On the Fall of France) · A. J. LIEBLING
Letter from London (On the Blitz) · MOLLIE PANTER-DOWNES
Survival (On Lieutenant John F. Kennedy) · JOHN HERSEY
Cross-Channel Trip (On D Day) · A. J. LIEBLING
The Suspended Drawing Room (On post-Blitz London) · S. N. BEHRMAN
D Day, Iwo Jima · JOHN LARDNER
Letter from Rome (On V-E Day) · PHILIP HAMBURGER
Hiroshima · JOHN HERSEY
PART TWO · AMERICAN SCENES
A Note by Jill Lepore
Notes and Comment: July 3, 1943 · E. B. WHITE
The Old House at Home (On McSorley’s Old Ale House) · JOSEPH MITCHELL
Opera in Greenville (On a lynching trial) · REBECCA WEST
Letter from a Campaign Train (On the 1948 presidential campaign) · RICHARD
ROVERE
Symbol of All We Possess (On the Miss America Pageant) · LILLIAN ROSS
PART THREE · POSTWAR
A Note by Louis Menand
Notes and Comment: November 1, 1947 · E. B. WHITE
Greek Diary: Communists, Socialists, and Royalists · EDMUND WILSON
The Birch Leaves Falling (On the Nuremberg trials) · REBECCA WEST
The Beautiful Spoils: Monuments Men (On Nazi art theft) · JANET FLANNER
Come In, Lassie! (On the Red Scare in Hollywood) · LILLIAN ROSS
Letter from Washington (On the North Atlantic Pact) · RICHARD ROVERE
Die Luftbrücke (On the Berlin airlift) · E. J. KAHN, JR.
PART FOUR · CHARACTER STUDIES
A Note by Susan Orlean
Notes and Comment: April 21, 1945 · E. B. WHITE
Pollen Man (On Walt Disney) · ST. CLAIR MCKELWAY AND HAROLD ROSS
Rugged Times (On Norman Mailer) · LILLIAN ROSS
Lugubrious Mama (On Edith Piaf) · A. J. LIEBLING
Gossip Writer (On Walter Winchell) · ST. CLAIR MCKELWAY
Goethe in Hollywood (On Thomas Mann) · JANET FLANNER
La France et Le Vieux (On Marshal Pétain) · JANET FLANNER
The Hot Bach (On Duke Ellington) · RICHARD O. BOYER
From Within to Without (On Le Corbusier) · GEOFFREY T. HELLMAN
The Great Foreigner (On Albert Einstein) · NICCOLÒ TUCCI
The Years Alone (On Eleanor Roosevelt) · E. J. KAHN, JR.
El Único Matador (On Sidney Franklin) · LILLIAN ROSS
PART FIVE · THE CRITICS
Notes and Comment: December 12, 1948 · E. B. WHITE
A Note by Joan Acocella
CLIFTON FADIMAN
Ernest Hemingway Crosses the Bridge (On For Whom the Bell Tolls)
EDMUND WILSON
Why Do People Read Detective Stories?
Jean-Paul Sartre: The Novelist and the Existentialist (On The Age of Reason)
LOUISE BOGAN
Review of Lord Weary’s Castle (On Robert Lowell)
GEORGE ORWELL
The Sanctified Sinner (On The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene)
W. H. AUDEN
Port and Nuts with the Eliots (On “Notes Towards the Definition of Culture”
by T. S. Eliot)
LIONEL TRILLING
Orwell on the Future (On Nineteen Eighty-Four)
A Note by David Denby
JOHN MOSHER
The Great Hildy (On His Girl Friday)
Zanuck’s Joads (On The Grapes of Wrath)
Charlie’s Hitler (On The Great Dictator)
Childe Orson (On Citizen Kane)
DAVID LARDNER
Pre-Eisenhower (On Casablanca)
Blood and Premiums (On Double Indemnity)
JOHN MCCARTEN
Very Rare Vintage (On The Lost Weekend)
None Better (On The Bicycle Thief)
A Note by Hilton Als
WOLCOTT GIBBS
The Boys in the Back Room (On The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill)
Well Worth Waiting For (On Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller)
What a Wonderful War (On Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific)
A Note by Peter Schjeldahl
ROBERT M. COATES
Assorted Moderns
Georges Braque, and the American Abstract Artists
LEWIS MUMFORD
Rockefeller Center Revisited
The Architecture of Power
A Note by Alex Ross
ROBERT A. SIMON
Copland and Shostakovich
Current and Recurrent (On Bernstein, Toscanini, and Armstrong)
PHILIP HAMBURGER
In the Hills (On Tanglewood)
May Day at Loxford (On Benjamin Britten)
WINTHROP SARGEANT
The Violin and Szigeti
A Note by Judith Thurman
LOIS LONG
On the retail customer
On ready-to-wear clothes
On American milliners
On French fashion
On college clothes
PART SIX · POETRY
A Note by Dan Chiasson
Home Song · E. B. WHITE
The Unknown Citizen · W. H. AUDEN
The Ritualists · WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
Night Journey · THEODORE ROETHKE
Barroom Matins · LOUIS MACNEICE
The End of the World · MALCOLM COWLEY
The Blind Sheep · RANDALL JARRELL
The Lovers · CONRAD AIKEN
Sunday-Morning Prophecy · LANGSTON HUGHES
A Poet Speaks from the Visitors’ Gallery · ARCHIBALD MACLEISH
A Hundred Minnows · MARK VAN DOREN
The Triumph of Education · HOWARD NEMEROV
At the Fishhouses · ELIZABETH BISHOP
Aspects of Robinson · WELDON KEES
Awaking · STEPHEN SPENDER
At Yearsend · RICHARD WILBUR
What I Know About Life · OGDEN NASH
The Bight · ELIZABETH BISHOP
Song for the Last Act · LOUISE BOGAN
PART SEVEN · FICTION
A Note by Zadie Smith
The Second Tree from the Corner · E. B. WHITE
The Jockey · CARSON MCCULLERS
Graven Image · JOHN O’HARA
The Patterns of Love · WILLIAM MAXWELL
Act of Faith · IRWIN SHAW
The Enormous Radio · JOHN CHEEVER
My Da · FRANK O’CONNOR
The Mysteries of Life in an Orderly Manner · JESSAMYN WEST
Symbols and Signs · VLADIMIR NABOKOV
The Lottery · SHIRLEY JACKSON
The Beginning of a Story · ELIZABETH TAYLOR