In a letter dated October 2, 1946, Raymond Chandler wrote:
I suppose you read a bookseller our here was convicted of selling indecency in Edmund Wilson’s Memoirs of Hecate County. Very discouraging. The book is indecent enough, of course, and in exactly the most offensive way — without passion, like a phallus made of dough. Now they are bootlegging the damn thing at $25 a copy. It isn’t worth the original asking price. Being, like all those who have worked in Hollywood, somewhat of a connoisseur of the damp fart, I place Mr. Wilson high on the list. His careful and pedestrian book reviews misguide one into thinking there is something in his head besides mucilage. There isn’t.
What with Wilson being all the rage this fall — two Library of America books of criticism and a new bio — I was feeling pretty guilty about finding his writing tedious. Now, not so much.
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