A Century of Arts and Letters

Although the American Academy of Arts and Letters is best known for the awards and prizes it grants artists, writers, and musicians, the organization itself remains as little-understood as its awards are acclaimed. John Updike has brought together eleven current members-including Cynthia Ozick, Norman Mailer, and Louis Auchincloss―to raid the Academy's archives. With each writer taking on a decade of the Academy's history, they have created an eye-opening documentary of an organization central to the arts in America for the past century. R. W. B. Lewis writes of the admission of Julia Ward Howe in 1907 (at the age of 86) as the first woman in the Academy, and the intense debate about the very consideration of female members. Lewis also recounts the humorous saga of the feuding James brothers, with William declining membership and decrying the election several months prior to the nomination of his "younger and shallower and vainer brother" Henry. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., tells of the Academy's struggle against modernism in the 1930s―largely a one-man war waged by its feisty septuagenarian secretary, Robert Underwood Johnson-that resulted in a perennial failure to nominate F. Scott Fitzgerald and H. L. Mencken, among others. And composer Jack Beeson notes Gore Vidal's droll telegram declining an honorary membership on the grounds that he was already a member of the Diners Club.

A surprisingly dull collection of essays commemorating Americas preeminent institution of arts and letters on its centennial. Editor Updike, in his confusing foreword and his chapter covering the years 193847, sets the tone, managing to make this venerable, stodgy old institution seem . . . stodgy but venerable. Arranged chronologically, the essays are by historians and literary figures such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Cynthia Ozick, Norman Mailer, Louis Auchincloss, and Hortense Calisher, artists (Wolf Kahn and Richard Lippold), and the composer Jack Beeson. Founded in 1898, the National Institute was modeled on the Institut de France and its literary chamber, the Acadmie franaise. There would be confusion and in-fighting over the rules, domain, and membership status between the Institute and the Academy (an exalted, and much smaller, body within the Institute) until they were unified in 1993. The books liveliest passages have to do with the barring of such figures as H.L. Mencken and Theodore Dreiser, and with some pronounced rivalries: William James refused membership in the academy because his younger and shallower and vainer brother (Henry) was already in. Interesting and indicative of the character of the Academy-Institute is its decades-long battle against modernism, waged primarily by Robert Underwood Johnson, the secretary, who along with Grace Vanamee, the permanent deputy, would maintain a staunchly conservative tone. Leave it to Mailer to add a little zest to the proceedings. His chapter, Rounding Camelot, covers the period from 1958 to 1967. He laments that even at that late date the Academy-Institute was all but wholly incapable of any kind of effective social or political action. The organization would loosen up a little, eventually electing writers and artists Johnson would have abhorred. And its gold medals and grants remain highly sought after. Useful, but insufficiently edited. Nearly every entry re-explains who Johnson and Vanamee were or rehashes the early scandals. (85 photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This People magazine for the literati, chock-full of gossip, literary feuds, and the ego games of those who were tapped over the last century for entry into America's less virile version of the Academie Francaise--and those who should have been but who fell victim to those games. Twelve of the impressive cast of academy members--including Updike, Norman Mailer, Cynthia Ozick, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and R. W. B. Lewis--each take a decade of the academy's history and report on its trials and tribulations. One of the giants of the academy, Robert Underwood Johnson, casts a decades-long shadow in his one-man war against encroaching modernism, blackballing such masters as H. L. Mencken, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and T. S. Eliot (before his exile to England left him unqualified). This makes a great addition to a personal reference shelf, particularly with the complete list of all current and deceased members at the back of the book. An ample collection of photographs dispersed throughout the volume renders this a treasure for the culturati. Allen Weakland