Oscar tarcov biography

Writing to longtime friends Oscar and Edith Tarcov, Saul Bellow closes a report of his travels with an unexpected poem.

June 26, 1950

Dear Tarcovs—

Just now we’re in Positano, on the gulf of Salerno, in the midst of the mountains and hanging over the sea.

The fishermen have no motors and plant their own lobster traps, the women make lace on bolsters, simply with pins and bobbins, and on holy days the Saints are taken for a walk by a procession. It would seem incredible for the gods to never see the sun, and they are shown it on Sunday.

And we’re coming home in Sept.

Oscar tarcov biography

I expect things will be much altered. I read the papers with revulsion, when I get them. The only papers here are the Italian and catastrophe’s an old story to them—they prefer gossip.

So we’ll be in Chicago for a week or two in Sept., and then to New York.

I have evening work at NYU. Fear Isaac [Rosenberg] doesn’t like that.