Mention of Wellfleet has been popping up quite often in the past few months. Two weeks ago, the Homes section of the Boston Globe ran a feature on the 10-acre estate, birthplace of Wellfleet’s Banana King, Lorenzo Baker, and later literary meeting place for intellectuals, up for sale in the National Seashore. This week Wellfleet reaches readers through the pages of the New York Review of Books. When I brought the paper in to Sven, I couldn’t help but notice the large print on the cover: EDMUND WILSON ON GULL POND. So, I set Sven to reading the article, while I did laundry, ironing and other bed & breakfast chores. Apparently the excerpts had been removed from Wilson’s published diary at the request of Mary McCarthy. According to the article, written by their son Reuel, the two lovers were gallivanting around Gull Pond in the nude, shenanigans that took place in the early forties, when there were even fewer people around than today. What I liked about the excerpts was the facility Wilson shows at invoking nature. However, I found some of his descriptions over-wrought and others objectionable: baby pine cones are compared to a woman’s nipples, for instance. I can only wonder of what interest the article can possibly be to New York Review of Books readers, unless it provides insight/proof that the couple made love one day and had violent quarrels the next, surely only of significance to Wilson/McCarthy scholars? It is weird to have the author refer to his parents as “Wilson” and “McCarthy,” and his focus on their lovemaking seems almost prurient, if not “perverse,” Sven’s choice of adjective. And yet, as people skim this week’s Review of Books, they will think of Gull Pond, which can only be good for local tourism …
