Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir

One brilliantly sunny day in July, I decided to head out to the lake to bask in the sun and read. Unforuntately, I realized halfway there that I hadn't bought anything to read. So, I trotted over to my local used bookstore and began browsing their recent acquisition table. This little volume immediately gained my attention. It looked like fun, it looked like it would be a quick read, and it was short enough that it wouldn't keep me from continuing in any of the other books that I was already reading. So, off to the lake with this book in hand I went.KAFKA WAS THE RAGE was quite a nifty little read. I had read a fair amount about the Beats at one point, so this had some of the same post-WW II Manhattan atmosphere, but that was set more in the area of Columbia University, so this shifted the scene further south. There is no real story to tell here. Broyard merely recounts in a more or less anecdotal form a number of events and individuals from a particular moment in time. He has a gift for summoning up particular moments in vivid detail, and a talent for the brilliant line. An example of the former is his recounting of an adventure in which he took Delmore Schwartz, Clement Greenberg, and Dwight MacDonald to a Spanish Harlem nightclub. Another is his description of his art professor Meyer Schapiro.Some great lines:"I thought that being a Communist was a penalty you had to pay for being interested in politics."[on Dylan Thomas] "To him, an American party was like being in a bad pub with the wrong people."[on Delmore Schwartz] "Like Samuel Johnson, whom he resembled in many ways, Delmore was not interested in prospects, views, or landscape. He had looked at the city when he was young, and saw no need to do it again."[on a painter friend] "His voice was soft, deep, and cultivated and his manners were a history of civilization."As one might expect (and hope for) in a memoir set in such a vibrant era, the book is marvelous for its incessant name-dropping of famous individuals who pop up briefly as characters: figures as diverse as Erich Fromm, Maya Deren, Anais Nin, Caitlin and Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Gregory Bateson, as well as the previously mentioned Schwartz, Greenberg, MacDonald, and Shapiro.

The time for intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals to thrive was definitely in the late 1940's when barriers were falling and culture and mindscape were being reinvented by abstract painters, psychoanalysis, and changing attitudes about sexual freedom. Anatole Broyard writes about New York in 1947 from his perspective, as a World War II veteran coming home to new ideas and strange people. His vision is romantic and nostalgic, but he also recognizes the limitations of these times and his own feeling of being an outsider among outsiders. Being so immersed in the intellectual and sexual experiences of life, he longs for a more personal, emotional bond which he fails to find. Though Broyard could not finish the book before his death, it is still very much a worthwhile read if you love books, sex, and the excitement of cities.

When I started the book I was delighted early on that his female roommate, who goes everywhere pantiless, has already run into W. H. Auden and sent the two of them crashing to the floor of a bookstore. Oh yeah, and what's this guy smokin' on the cover?This is an autobiography that delves into the art and literary scene of Greenwich Village during the late 40's, post WWII era. I was surprised to find that the author actually passed away before he finished writing this memoir. I can't imagine where he would have gone w/ it, but I'm sure we've missed out. His writing is very circumspect, and the fact that it's not actually a 'finished' work does not matter. I enjoyed the book as I've said above. I found myself considering cubism, Auden, Anais Nin, the Village, studying art in college, sex from the perspective of a man of the times. Anatole (cool name) is a sensitive man, honest about the shortcomings of his era. Plus I loved his crazy girlfriend. I appreciated his candor. What else can I say? When he says that the sex was hot, you'd have to believe him. Cool book.

In 1947, Anatole Broyard was a 25 year old veteran who chose to live in Greenwich Village rather than return to his parents home in Brooklyn after the war. His family was New Orleans French and he was raised a Catholic. The Village at that time represented freedom and new ways of thinking. It was a world of artists and writers. A world of intellectual and sexual freedom. A world where the latest in psychological theory was being taught at the New School by leaders in the field. There was peace and prosperity and a bright new world for the young.Especially since it was written in 1989, when Broyard was a writer with ripened talent, it is especially interesting. Broyard looks back at himself and the world as it existed then with a mature perspective and a sense of humor that kept me giggling as I turned the pages. His is not the voice of a disaffected beat generation; it is the voice of a wide-eyed young man coming of age at a time when anything seemed possible. He writes about abstract art, jazz, going to dance clubs in Spanish Harlem, meeting H.W. Auden and a funny incident with the wife of Dylan Thomas. There's a lot about sex and his various girlfriends. And apartments with bathtubs in the kitchen and a toilet in the hall. It is a history of New York as I've never quite seen it before.At 147 pages, this book seems much too short and I understand from the postscript that he became ill before he had a change to finish it. Too bad. Because I thoroughly enjoyed it. And am so glad that his wife decided to publish it now. I love the writing. It's simple prose with lots of good thinking behind it. A pure delight to read.

I met Sheri (Martinelli was her real name) in a similar way about 12 years later, when she was in North Beach. Broyard is a good writer, and accurately conveys the devastatingly uplifting effect such an otherworldly encounter has on a very young man from a very conventional background. Recommended reading for any whose intelligence is only eclipsed by their sense of humor.