FROM THE THIRD EYE The Evergreen Review Film Reader Ed Halter & Barney R...

FROM THE THIRD EYE The Evergreen Review Film Reader Ed Halter & Barney Rosset on Tosh Talks

The Evergreen Review was an off-shoot publication/ journal of the Grove Press, edited by the legendary publisher Barney Rosset. When I went to used bookstores, it wasn't hard to find old issues of the Evergreen Review. What strikes my fancy is that reading the review in the late 1960s is so different than reading it in the 21st century. Even the stylish prose of that period is so 1968 and almost dated in a beautiful manner. Languages do change, and it's interesting to pick up a book or especially a magazine from a specific decade or time and notice how the style has changed. "From The Third Eye" is a collection of articles and even ads from The Evergreen Review that focused on the film culture of that period. For me, the most important film magazine of that era was Jonas Mekas' "Film Culture," which he published through the Filmmaker's Co-op and Film Anthology. Evergreen Review, although they did essays and reporting of either film, filmmakers, and film festivals, at its heart was a literary magazine. The publication was set-up as a promotional tool for Grove Press, but also here, for Grove Films, which distributed and produced European films, and actually help made/presented works by Jean-Luc Godard, and writers/filmmakers Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet, which by the way, are all interviewed for the magazine as well as being in the book.

Without a doubt, a perfect snapshot of the concerns of underground or radical cinema, but also the politics of the Vietnam world, and the counterculture that was lurking in Manhattan at the time. Nat Hentoff, Norman Mailer, Parker Tyler, and Amos Vogel are the writers that comment on cinema, but the featured filmmakers are Andy Warhol, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ousmane Sembène, Duras, Robbe-Grille and William Klein. Also two pieces on Dennis Hopper, one on "Easy Rider," and the other focusing on the making of his "The Last Movie."

Throughout the book there are the original ads that were placed in the magazine, all either focusing on film scripts published by Grove, or film ads distributed by Evergreen/Grove. In a sense, it was a small world, but everyone in that world was an essential figure for culture and the arts. And here at that time, politics was very much part of the creative cultural world. A fascinating document and a fun trip back in time, when things were lively. - Tosh Berman, your host of "Tosh Talks"

"Dear Mr. Beckett: The Samuel Beckett File: Letters from the Publisher" Edited by Lois Oppenheim/Curated by Astrid Myers Rosset (Opus)

As a publisher (TamTam Books) I'm fascinated with books about publishing or about the publisher themselves. I'm especially interested in the great American publisher Barney Rosset.   His Grove Press is/was very much a presence in my library for nearly my entire teenage and adult life.   If it wasn't for example and inspiration I got from Mr. Rosset (from a great distance, never met him) I doubt I would have started TamTam Books.  Reading "Mr. Beckett" brought up my anxieties about my press, and I can totally 'feel' for whatever situations that Rosset took on or got himself involved in.

For one, anyone who has even the slightest interest in the world of publishing should read this book.  By no means is it a perfect book. In fact, it's kind of messy, but at the end of the read, a delightful mess of a book.  Some of the interviews repeat themselves and could have been edited down, but I think the purpose of the publication brings the reader to that era of Samuel Beckett and his relationship with his American publisher, Barney Rosset.

As the full title states, it is a file of Rosset's letters to Beckett, as well as some correspondence from Beckett to Rosset, but also interviews with Rosset, and Eugene Ionesco and Alain Robbe-Grillet, regarding their relationship with the publisher, but on Beckett as well.  There is an insight into various theatrical productions of "Waiting for Godot," as well as his other plays.   Also interesting interview regarding the making of Beckett's "Film,"  with Rosset (he produced the movie) and working with Buster Keaton.  The letters from Rosset to Beckett are fascinating, concerning the relationship between author and publisher.  Nothing dramatic or bad happens between the two guys, but the daily struggle of getting things done, and dealing with financial issues is at times painful (for me) and awesome at the same moment.   A magnificent monument to the publisher and the writer.  May it last forever.

"The Tender Hour of Twilight" by Richard Seaver

Without a doubt Richard Seaver and his world (Barney Rosset, John Cadler, and for me, the Malcolm McLaren of publishers, Maurice Girodias) are the one's who inspired me to do my press TamTam Books.  Which in turns means that I have a small collection of books on these publishers that always looked at the big picture, and usually (and hysterically) fail in some form due to the devil details of publishing.  The release of the late Richard Seaver's memoir "The Tender Hour of Twilight" is a remarkable journey of American publishing at its best.  Taking chances and fighting the good fight for literature that needed support from the guys behind the writers.  Publisher's memoirs are usually like the great crime heist book.  You always get a set of interesting characters doing something impossible.  And publishing sometimes looks and reads like "Mission Impossible."

Seaver's book is in two parts.  His life as an magazine/literary editor and his first sighting of Samuel Beckett as well as with the wild man of alt-lit Alex Trocchi - his partner in crime at the time.  Its a very heady and beautiful portrait of Paris in the late 1950's and it has that romantic tinge that makes one want to re-live or re-imagine his life in the Left Bank.

The second part deals with his life at Grove Press - the revolutionary and super cool publishing house controlled by the late great Barney Rosset.  Here we have the relationship between the two guys plus people like Maurice Girodias, who is a great character in life and literature.  For those who consider themselves book nerds or anyone who is interested in the cultural history of publishing - Seaver's book is extremely important.  This is what one may call a keeper.