The New York Times - Book Review - USA (2022-02-06)

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 5

Capping Off a Good Story

TO THE EDITOR:
Brian Blomerth’s back-page
Sketchbook, “The Mushroom
Painter” (Jan. 23), deserves a
happy ending. Although Jean-
Henri Fabre worried, as noted by
Blomerth, about the future of his
paintings of mushrooms, they are
safe and well cared for at the
Harmas de Fabre museum —
Fabre’s longtime home in
Sérignan-du-Comtat, France,
which is now part of the Muséum
National d’Histoire Naturelle, and
is operated as a museum, garden
and study center. The paintings
were also published as a limited-
edition book in 1991 as “Les
Champignons de Jean-Henri
Fabre.” Neither rats nor a grand-
nephew has attacked these treas-
ures, thanks to the work of his
family and the museum.

DONALD H. PFISTER
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

The writer is the Asa Gray re-
search professor of systematic
botany at Harvard University.

Crossed Paths

TO THE EDITOR:
Regarding Troy Jollimore’s re-
view of “Jim Harrison: Complete
Poems” (Jan. 16): For many
years, beginning 40 years ago,
we stayed at a resort on Lake
Michigan in the Leelanau Penin-
sula owned by the Jolliffe family
and called the Jolli-Lodge. One
day, Mrs. Jolliffe was showing
me around the main house, built
for wealthy Chicago folks in the
1920s. When she opened the door

to one bedroom, still furnished as

the original owners had left it, I

saw a huge bottle of Gallo wine

on the rickety desk. Mrs. Jolliffe

said: “Oh, that’s Jim Harrison’s.

He comes here to write when he

needs some quiet and privacy.” I

almost genuflected in the door-

way but restrained myself. I

knew Harrison was living on the

peninsula but this was the clos-

est I ever got to a sighting de-

spite many visits to the area.

(We also have a poster created

by the Leelanau Cellars with a

bit of Harrison’s poetry in the

guest bathroom.)

JUDITH K. SIMONSON

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.

An Uncomfortable Admission

TO THE EDITOR:

Your review of Kendra James’s

“Admissions” (Jan. 23) brought

back a flood of memories, includ-

ing tragic ones. I’m white, but I

too experienced the paradox of

being an outsider in the insular

world of an elite boarding school.

Fifty years ago, I was a schol-

arship student at the Lawrence-

ville School, a prep school with

classes of 12, teachers with Ivy

League doctorates, and ameni-

ties like Black men serving food

to white boys whose surnames

revealed which corporation their

families owned.

To get there, I dragged a trunk

that weighed as much as I did

through New York’s Port Author-

ity Terminal. I’ll never forget the

intellectual excitement I felt as a

Yale-educated teacher had me

reading and writing about books

like “A Clockwork Orange.” I will

also never forget a school offi-

cial’s failure to do simple, obvi-

ous things when I struggled

emotionally in my second year.

My working-class background

made me an outsider. Both my

parents suffered from severe

mental illness, putting me even

more at risk than adolescent

boys in a low-supervision setting

already are.

Reading the review of Kendra

James’s memoir was painful,

even 50 years after my own

experience. Eye-popping endow-

ments create the conditions for

superb education. Efforts to

create racial and class diversity

are laudable. But when elite

schools bring outsiders to what

can be a Lewis Carroll-novel

scale of cultural change, they

have a duty to reach those stu-

dents as the young, vulnerable

humans they are. For me, that

didn’t happen.

DAVID A. SCOTT

COLUMBUS, OHIO

Slow Down

TO THE EDITOR:

In her By the Book interview

(Jan. 16), Annie Leibovitz reports

that Susan Sontag once told her

that if she read as slowly as

Leibovitz did, she wouldn’t read

anything. Some adults are en-

tirely capable of shaming chil-

dren about their reading, but this

is proof that anybody, regardless

of age, can be subjected to this

kind of patronizing remark.

Maybe Sontag “inhaled books,”

but I suspect it’s likely that Lei-

bovitz, instead of inhaling books,

savors them, and ultimately

derives more from her reading

than people who maintain an

endless reading list, and who

confuse book-consumption rate

with comprehension.

DAVID ENGLISH

ACTON, MASS.

CORRECTION

A bibliographic note with a re-

view on Jan. 23 about Jami At-

tenberg’s memoir, “I Came All

This Way to Meet You,” mis-

stated the book’s subtitle. It is

“Writing Myself Home,” not

“Writing My Way Home.”

[email protected]

Letters

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