Editors' Note

Abstract

Editors' Note Essays in Honor of George Simson Afestschrift is a funny thing. We knew this almost as soon as we announced the project. Just watching the mouths of the average American twist around the strange ordering of consonants has made the project well worth the effort. But afestschrift in honor of George Simson has more than just the pleasure of watching people struggle to mispronounce the word; the Friends of George are such a various crew that the works they have submitted to honor their friend—and the contributors are all F.O.G.s of one sort or another—not only represent the varied interests of George himself but also have offered us and, we are sure, the readers of this volume a lively variety of intellectual approaches and topics. In covering George's career the essays herein range from personal reminiscence to scholarly analysis. All give us an intimate look at the process of being a working intellectual. The most personal contributions are those of biographer Gabriel Merle and poet Anthony Friedson. Merle's "Scrappy Notes" provides us, through the lens of skeptical Gallic amusement and admiration, with as complete a summary of George's career as we will get at this point. Friedson's note, "A Grateful Summary," which, in fact, concludes the volume, provides a light-hearted—it is difficult to erase the image of George the editor switching his spiked Prussian helmet for "a delicate Emily Dickinson chapeau"—look at George's career as seen from the point of view of one of his closest colleagues. It is only natural that works by biographers would be key to a collection dedicated to the founder of both the Biographical Research Center and Biography, and three of the most important biographers writing today have contributed essays to this festschrift. George's friendship with Michael Holroyd began with their interest in Lytton Strachey. It is more than fitting that, as a biographer of both Strachey and Carrington, Holroyd tells us how he became involved with his subjects. Noel Annan, too, focuses on the Bloomsbury group in his fascinating picture of John Maynard Keynes. Frederick R. Karl moves back in time to tell us about George Eliot as a subject and Karl's relationship with the earlier biography by Gordon Haight. As Gabriel Merle points out, George was also an early and vociferous critic of the Vietnam War and has remained a passionate peace advocate ever since. This led to his instrumental support of the Matsunaga Peace Institute at the University of Hawai'i. This life thread is represented in this work by essays from two of the Institute's most important associates, Glenn D. Paige and Johan Galtung. Paige's essay combines both the biographical and peace interests in an application of Plutarch's standards for greatness as found in the Parallel Lives to the political leadership of Gandhi. On a more personal level, Galtung's essay on multiculturalism displays the same personal passion and demand for synthesis that George has brought to peace issues. The two essays which complete the volume are on diverse subjects. In the first, Stephen O'Harrow uses the Babar stories to illustrate French imperialist attitudes in the 1930s. In the second, Edward Seidensticker, the biographer of the Japanese novelist Nagai Kafü, defines for us the difference between the process of biography and autobiography. Clearly this leap from Babar the Elephant to Autobiography is an indication of the depth and range of George's interests. There is something quite elegiac and eulogiac about the idea of afestschrift. But in George Simson's case this is neither elegy nor eulogy. George is still passionately among us, arguing the good argument, fighting the good fight, pushing the good cause. He has promised himself a thousand projects and he will deliver on the neediest. And he will continue to make intellectual contributions to the field of literary criticism in general and biography in particular. This volume, then, is a gift from his friends for a distinguished and rich career ... still in progress. We await the next volume. Marie-José Fassiotto Michael Fassiotto Craig Howes ...