The Sewanee Review has received word that longtime contributor Earl H. Rovit passed away on April 16 at the age of ninety. Rovit was a contributor of essays and criticism to the Review for over forty years. A leading literary scholar of the writing of Ernest Hemingway, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow and William Faulkner, Rovit was one of the first in the early 1960s to discern and explore what became known as the Jewish American literary tradition, including writers such as Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Norman Mailer, and Philip Roth. One highlight of his illustrious career was publishing Ernest Hemingway, a book of critical interpretation and discussion of the author’s works. Rovit also published three novels, The Player King, Crossings, and A Far Cry, which the New York Times Book Review called “deft and audacious.” We mourn the loss of this great literary mind and remember his many outstanding contributions to our publication, most recently the essay “Confessions of a Renter” in the Summer 2012 issue.
I included this as part of one of my memoirs in Spanish so the Spanish version is at the bottom. What the heck? ...
Go back
Hobby of Contacting People.html
After Buddy Rovit's death at
90 years of age,
His cousin contacted me
because I had shared the
link to this letter. HERE
IS THE CORRESPONDENCE.
I'm not sure if you would remember me at all since I only knew you when I was a child in Louisville, Kentucky in around 1956 or so. I am the son of Gerald A. Cole and Jean H. Cole and we lived in Kentucky where my father, a biology professor, worked at the University of Louisville. They were friends of yours. My parents' closest friends in Kentucky were Bill and Mary Furnish.
I'm writing simply because I'm curious to know if my memory of so long ago is correct or not. I hope you might respond to this letter and I hope that you might find it of interest in any case.
Here's what I remember. You had a convertible, a big (yellow or beige?) beast and my two brothers and two sisters and I more than once rode in the back in comfort and style through the city to your house. It was a thrill for us to be in such a grand kind of automobile and to feel the air rushing by. It was so different from riding in the woody station wagon in which we traveled to Alaska and back again in 1955.
Woody that we went in to alaska. La furgoneta en la que viajamos a Alaska junto con los Furnish. Se puede ver la sombra de mi madre que está tomando la foto. WAIT. This is a different car. THE ABOVE CAR IS OUR 1954 TRIP WEST. They must have bought a slightly newer model for the Alaska trip. The next two pictures are really from the trip and look at the difference.
I guess this is not the same car
HERE'S WHERE WE MET THE FURNISHES ON THE WAY. THE BADLANDS OF SOUTH DAKOTA.
You lived on the top of a hill and my memory has no vision of any other house atop it. Only yours.
We knew you as "Buddy." You told us kids a tale of a magic marble, a blue one, with which you could communicate and get advice for yourself and for us. We were very young and were totally credulous and thus fascinated. We wanted to see the blue magic marble, but you said that it had been lost in the brush on the side of the house. Naturally the five of us immediately set to searching for it.
We came up with a green marble that had to suffice. You said that you knew the green marble and that it, too, was indeed a magic one, and held it to your ear and told us what it was telling you. I cannot remember what you said the marble had to say.
We children believed you to be fabulously wealthy living up on the hill and driving a three-hole convertible Buick (or whatever it was), and I have a vivid memory of sitting with you and your wife Honey in your living room. We were children and shy and naïve, not knowing much in the way of propriety and one of us asked aloud, "Why are you so rich?"
"I know," said my sister. "Because Honey is an artist."
We were under the impression that artists made a lot of money. Perhaps it was because Jon Gnagy in those days was an artist on TV and people on television certainly had to be rich, but that's only a guess.
Here's a THREE-HOLE BUICK
There appears to also be a "Four-hole Buick."
I remember years later in Tempe, Arizona I mentioned Buddy ----, and my mother said that you had published a book on Hemingway. I don't remember if she had a copy, but she may have as she liked Hemingway.
In 1961, when I was ten I was riding in the car with my mom driving and she suddenly blurted out what she had just heard on the radio, "Ernest Hemingway died!"
At any rate, these memories come to me when I think of my childhood and when my brother and I play "Let's Have a Hemingway Conversation:"
"You're a worthless rummy, aren't you?"
"True enough perhaps but you needn't say so to my face."
"You're a miserable rotter."
"You say the most bloody awful things..."
As you can see, we aren't very good at it, but it's fun.
I should have consulted my brothers and sisters to check their memories before writing, but I can ask them later. My parents have passed on, so I can't ask them.
Anyway, I'm only writing out of personal curiosity about some fond memories of mine. I'm hoping that you might be kind enough to reply.
Yours truly,
Tom Cole
On May 10, 2013, at 7:42 AM, EBuddy ....emailed me:
In the letter which at this very moment is crawling to you across the USPS system, I forgot to note that Yes, we were filthy rich at Louisville. I not only had a salary of $4200 a year (four courses a semester, I think) but I had the option of teaching in the summer and in the Adult Education programs at night. Jerry probably did as well, but I don't know. Bud
I emailed him back May 10, 2013 10:49:42 AM MST To: b r
When I got a lot older, I realized that you probably weren't rich.
Looking forward very much to the snail mail.
Yours,
Tom
Dear Tom:
What a pleasant and unexpected surprise to get your articulate, detailed, sometimes-right, sometimes-wrong memories of some sixty or so years ago. Of course I remember Jerry and Jean who were among my very favorite people in Louisville. (Bill Furnish, as well, although he was more distant, wittier, and sort of on the sidelines.) Your father—as I recall—remained in the Air Force reserve and would spend something like one Saturday a month flying three or four thousand miles in the new jet fighters to retain his active status and I was very envious of that. (I had been in the infantry.) I can’t remember how many children you were but I do recall Jerry announcing that the most recent addition would be named “Terminus.” And I also can’t remember if you folks left Louisville before I did. We did have a convertible—a powder blue Ford—which I traded away for a Rambler when our first child was born in 1958. Your recollections of the house on the hill are vaguely accurate. It was on a hill, but it had been the slave quarters of a larger house which was a little higher than ours. The marbles elude me, but it was the kind of story interaction with kids which I tended to engage in and enjoy. Not at that time having children of my own, I thought your family was sort of ideal. In fact, the few years I spent at Louisville (I was in my 20’s) were, on the whole, quite happy ones. I liked the town, I liked the University, I liked my colleagues, I liked the students and I was learning how to be a teacher. A great deal of water—in fact, floods and floods of it—some glistening silver, some flotsam—have passed under the bridge since, but my Louisville memories are almost entirely happy ones, And I thank you for refreshing them for me.
Again, thank you
New York, NY 10023
Here's his envelope:
And the letter itself:
DOGGONE IT! LOOK BELOW.
Remembering Earl Rovit
23 abril, 2013
New York, NY
Querido Dr. Rovit:
No estoy seguro de si me recuerda, ya que solamente le conocía de niño en Louisville, Kentucky cerca de 1956. Yo soy el hijo de Gerald A. Cole and Jean Hascall Cole y vivíamos en Kentucky donde mi padre, un catedrático de biología, trabajaba en la Universidad de Louisville. Eran amigos suyos. Los amigos más cercanos de mis padres eran Bill y Mary Furnish.
Escribo nada más porque me gustaría saber si mi memoria de hace tantos años es correcta o no. Espero que Ud. me conteste y encuentre esta carta interesante.
Lo siguiente es de lo que me acuerdo: Ud. tenía un convertible, un monstruo grandote (¿amarillo o beige?) y mis dos hermanos, mis dos hermanas y yo más de una vez viajábamos en el asiento posterior con un estilo sofisticado por la ciudad rumbo a su casa. Era muy emocionante estar en un automóvil tan grande y sentir el viento que soplaba. Era muy diferente a viajar en la furgoneta familiar en la que fuimos a Alaska en 1955.
Vivía Ud. en la cima de una colina y no recuerdo haber visto ninguna otra casa allí; solamente la suya.
Le llamábamos “Buddy Rovit.” Nos contó un cuento de una canica azul mágica, con la que podría comunicarse y obtener consejo para Ud. y nosotros. Éramos muy jóvenes y totalmente crédulos y por eso encantados y fascinados. Queríamos ver la canica azul pero Ud. nos informó de que se había perdido en las matas junto a la casa. Por supuesto los cinco empezamos a buscarla de inmediato.
Encontramos una canica verde que tenía que ser suficiente. Ud. dijo que conocía la canica verde y que también era mágica. Se la puso al oído y nos dijo lo que le estaba diciendo. No me acuerdo del consejo que la canica le dio.
Nosotros creíamos que Ud. era fabulosamente rico porque vivía en la colina y conducía un convertible Buick “de tres agujeros” (o lo que sea) y tengo el recuerdo vivo de estar sentado en su sala con Ud. y su esposa, Honey. Éramos niños tímidos e ingenuos y como no sabíamos mucho de lo adecuado, uno de nosotros les preguntó:
—¿Por qué son ustedes tan ricos?
—Yo lo sé —dijo mi hermana. Es porque Honey es artista.
Creíamos que los artistas ganaban mucho dinero. Tal vez sea debido a que en aquel entonces un Jon Gnagy era artista en la televisión y la gente en la televisión sin duda debía de ser rica, al menos eso pienso yo.
Recuerdo que años más tarde en Tempe, Arizona yo mencioné a Buddy Rovit, y mi madre me informó de que Ud. había publicado un libro sobre Hemingway. No me acuerdo de si ella tenía una copia, pero es posible que sí ya que a ella le gustaba Hemingway.
En el año 1961 cuando yo tenía diez años estaba en el coche con mi madre y de repente gritó lo que acababa de oír en la radio:
—¡Se murió Ernest Hemingway!
De todos modos, estas cosas me vienen a la memoria cuando pienso en mi juventud y cuando mi hermano y yo jugamos a “Vamos a tener una conversación al estilo Hemingway.”
—Ud. es un inútil borrachín, ¿no es así?
—Lo cierto es que tal vez, pero no es necesario que lo diga a la cara.
—Ud. es un canalla miserable.
—Ud. dice las cosas más jodidamente terribles.
Ud. puede ver claramente que no somos muy buenos haciéndolo, pero es divertido.
Yo les debería haber preguntado a mis hermanos para saber su recuerdos antes de escribirle pero les puedo preguntar más tarde. Mis padres se han ido así que ya no les puedo preguntar.
De todos modos, escribo solamente por curiosidad de algunas memorias predilectas mías. Espero que Ud. tenga la bondad de responder.
Atentamente,
Tom Cole
Por correo electrónico recibí el 10 de mayo de 2013, a las 7:42 am:
En la carta que ahora mismo está llegando a Ud. a paso de tortuga por el sistema de correo de Estados Unidos se me olvidó decirte que sí éramos asquerosamente ricos. Yo no solamente tenía un sueldo de 4200 dólares al año (cuatro clases al semestre yo creo), pero tenía la opción de dar clases durante el verano en el programa para adultos en la noche. Jerry probablemente hacía lo mismo, pero no lo sé.
Bud
Respondí el 10 de Mayo de 2013, a las 10:49 am
Cuando ya era más viejo, me di cuenta de que probablemente no eran ricos.
Me ilusiona recibir esta carta.
Tom
9 de mayo de 2013
Querido Tom:
Qué sorpresa amena e imprevista fue recibir sus articuladas, detalladas, algunas veces correctas, pero otras veces equivocadas memorias de hace algunos sesenta años. Por supuesto me acuerdo de Jerry y Jean, que estaban entre mis amigos más apreciados en Louisville. (Bill Furnish, también, aunque él era más lejano, ingenioso y estaba al margen.) Tu padre — tal y como recuerdo — se quedó en las reservas de las fuerzas aéreas y pasaba algo como un fin de semana al mes piloteando tres o cuatro mil millas en los nuevos aviones de reacción para mantener su estado activo y yo me sentía muy envidioso de eso. (Yo había estado en la infantería.) No puedo recordar cuántos niños eran ustedes pero recuerdo que Jerry proclamó que la incorporación más reciente se llamaría “Terminus.” Tampoco me acuerdo de si ustedes salieron de Louisville antes de mí. Es cierto que teníamos un convertible, un Ford azul pálido que yo cambié por un Rambler cuando nació nuestro primer niño en el año 1958. Sus recuerdos de nuestra casa son más o menos precisos. Estaba situada en una colina, pero era la vivienda de esclavos de una casa más grande que estaba un poquito más arriba que la nuestra. Se me escapa el cuento de las canicas, pero era la clase de cuento e interacción con los niños en que yo tendía a meterme y disfrutar. No teniendo niños, yo creía que su familia era más o menos ideal. (Yo tenía veintitantos.) En efecto, los pocos años que pasé en Louisville fueron, por regla general, años bastante alegres. Me gustaba el pueblo, me gustaba la universidad, me gustaban mis colegas, y estaba aprendiendo a ser maestro. Ha llovido mucho desde entonces. De hecho ha habido algunas tormentas grandes y poderosas que han traído tanto una lluvia plateada y reluciente como escombros, pero mis recuerdos de Louisville son casi completamente dichosos y te agradezco por recordármelos. Otra vez, gracias.
Otra vez, gracias.
DOGGONE IT! LOOK BELOW.
Remembering Earl Rovit
The Sewanee Review has received word that longtime contributor Earl H. Rovit passed away on April 16 at the age of ninety. Rovit was a contributor of essays and criticism to the Review for over forty years. A leading literary scholar of the writing of Ernest Hemingway, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow and William Faulkner, Rovit was one of the first in the early 1960s to discern and explore what became known as the Jewish American literary tradition, including writers such as Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Norman Mailer, and Philip Roth. One highlight of his illustrious career was publishing Ernest Hemingway, a book of critical interpretation and discussion of the author’s works. Rovit also published three novels, The Player King, Crossings, and A Far Cry, which the New York Times Book Review called “deft and audacious.” We mourn the loss of this great literary mind and remember his many outstanding contributions to our publication, most recently the essay “Confessions of a Renter” in the Summer 2012 issue.