Lost Causes
Pleas from the starving artist community, metaphorical and actual alike...
“You feel you have to publish crap to make money to live and let live.”
~ Ernest Hemingway in a Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1934
“I appeal to your charity, I appeal to your generosity, I appeal to your justice, I appeal to your accounts, I appeal, in fine, to your purse.”
~ Robert Louis Stevenson in a letter to his father, 1865
“It is now the fall of my second year in Paris. I was sent here for a reason I have not yet been able to fathom. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.
~ Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, 1934
In the year 1940, James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was obliged to leave Paris. Inarguably the greatest novelist of his generation, Mr. Joyce found himself holed up in an unoccupied part of France, not far from Vichy. He was there accompanied by his wife, son and grandson, while his daughter, seriously ill, remained in hospital near Nantes.
Surrounded by war, severed from family and friends, the situation was indeed grim... but a flicker of hope appeared in the possibility of a visa from neighboring (and, importantly, neutral) Switzerland.
There stood but one obstacle in his way, familiar and formidable: Money.
The Swiss authorities, as a condition of granting residence, required at the time a substantial guarantee—in this case, the equivalent of over $7,000, to be deposited in a bank in Switzerland—to ensure that the visitor should not become a “public charge.”
Unable to earn his keep as a British national in Vichy France, an appeal was raised in Joyce’s name, that he may obtain the funds necessary to secure safe passage to freedom.
Published in journals and newspapers across the west, the appeal read, in part:
“Mr. Joyce is probably at the present time the greatest living writer in English and it would be impossible to contribute more effectively to the cause of literature than by helping to get him to a place of safety.”
And there you have it, dear reader... quite possibly the most gifted writer of the last century, besieged by one of the most disruptive and horrific wars of all, and an appeal for his freedom blasted out across the entire western presses. For aspiring patrons of the arts, there was simply no choice but to cut a check, lick an envelope and make good on that promise.
Which brings us to today…
What hope have we, scattered comrades of the (metaphorically) starving artist community, in the wake of such a plea? Four score and three years since Joyce’s noble appeal, we find ourselves unaffected by the scourge of war and with nary a half-empty thimble of the talent that flowed so bounteously from the able artist’s pen.
Robbed by peace… unburdened by ability… abandoned by poverty… are we merely to perish in the relative comfort of our own mediocrity? Not so fast!
Happily for us, a brave handful of your Fellow Flâneurs have already pledged their support to our humble indie press... without us so much as having had the gall to ask!
From their words of misguided (though infinitely appreciated) encouragement, we draw inspiration enough to put the proposition to you directly.
Starting today, kindly consider yourself invited – though by no means obliged – to chip in for this questionable cause. For something between a cup of coffee and a copa de vino per month (~$7) you too can hold your head high, proud in the knowledge that it didn’t take a heartfelt plea from a bonafide genius displaced by war to move you to compassion and patronage. You simply did it because you – whatever your dear, generous name is – you thought it the right thing to do.
You can support us on a monthly or yearly basis here. Or, if you really feel the spirit move you, go for the Founder’s Membership... safe in the knowledge that we’ll figure out, at some future moment of unbridled afflatus, a way to repay your kindness.
As for the work you’re supporting, we really only started contributing regularly to this space six or so months ago. With your help, we’ll make it another six yet!
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
P.S. James Joyce did eventually make it to Zurich, Switzerland, where he died an artist’s death barely a year later, in 1941. He was, of course, tragically young and handsome. Some guys have all the luck.