As assistant arts editor at New York magazine in the second half of the 1970s, I enjoyed my relationship with all of the
critics. Reading
their copy and working and collaborating with them daily on the edits was an
invaluable supplement to my more formal education. I was being paid (although not handsomely) to read superb critical thinkers, surely the smartest formula for any aspiring writer. Before and after work, I was enjoying some of the greatest fiction ever written. Between the required reading
for my classes and whatever other literature I had on hand, John Simon would
always take note of the novels that accompanied me during my daily commute to
and from the office
I remember some of the titles: The Old Curiosity Shop (which edition he
reverentially paged through), A Hero of
Our Time and Les Liaisons Dangereuses
(which he deemed two of the great works of world literature), Anna Karenina, Far From the Madding Crowd, Oblomov, The Trial, The Pastoral Symphony, and The Heart of the Matter. One day he
noticed Francois Mauriac’s Le Noeud de
Vipères (The Vipers’ Tangle) on
the side of my desk. “Yes,” he noted.
“That is the correct [English] translation.”
John passed away at age 94 in November of 2019. A brilliant littérateur, a critic of steadfast standards and ideals, John was the smartest, most erudite and well-read man I ever knew. He was never dull, and he took pains to ensure that his copy never was. I learned early on from him how playful language could be in the hands of a linguist. John was born in Yugoslavia in 1925 and was fluent in Serbo-Croatian, German, and Hungarian by age 5. He later learned English, French, and Italian. I had my American Heritage dictionary close at hand—and increased my vocabulary—while reading his copy as he hovered nearby. If I chuckled over a passage, John was delighted. “Yes, yes. That was good, wasn’t it?” he’d say.
John would very neatly write out his first drafts in a tiny longhand on yellow legal pads, editing as he wrote and later transcribing the essay onto a triple-carbon set character by character on a manual typewriter. It was that version that I first read, from which he made additional revisions and corrections.
There were editorial disagreements with John over his physical descriptions of Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, and Sammy Davis Jr. in the original drafts of his reviews of performances by those actors. He had his favorites—in film (Bergman, von Sydow, Bujold, Wertmuller, Malick), in theater (Shakespeare, Buchner, Wilson, Shanley), in criticism (Agee, Macdonald, Warshow, Tynan, Samuels), in music (Britten, Janacek, Satie), and in literature (Voltaire, Graves, Wilbur, Auden)—and anyone who read John regularly knew he could be as effusive in his praise as he was devastating in his condemnation. For example:
Effusive Praise
Of Richard Wilbur’s translation of Molière’s The School for Wives, John wrote, “Wilbur makes Molière into as great an English verse playwright as he was a French one.”
He called Beth Henley “a new playwright of charm, warmth, style, unpretentiousness, and authentically individual wisdom.” Of her play Crimes of the Heart, he wrote, “[It] bursts with energy, merriment, sagacity, and, best of all, a generosity toward people and life that many good writers achieve only in their most mature offerings, if at all.”
He called René Clément's film Forbidden Games “a masterpiece,” citing the acting: “Even the smallest part is letter-perfect...and that of Paulette, by Brigitte Fossey, incomparable.”
John said Debussy's opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, was “one of the flawless diamonds of the repertory, and certainly one of the most beautiful and influential.”
He said “technical expertise and profound artistic and intellectual integrity make the films of Ingmar Bergman works of art.”
Of the sublime Max von Sydow's performance in Bille August's “very good film” adaptation of Martin Anderson Nexo's Pelle the Conqueror, John wrote, “But the concluding words of praise must go to Max von Sydow. There is a scene near the end where his misery is shot almost entirely from the back, his face only briefly, partially visible. Yet there is more ineffable wretchedness in that rear view, as [his character] Lasse weeps in terminal defeat, than other actors could give us in full frontal closeup and twice the amount of time.”
His fellow critic Charles Thomas Samuels wrote, “Simon shows himself a powerful demolition machine for a culture besieged on all sides.”
The composer Ned Rorem, in his introduction to Simon's On Music, called John “among our country's leading artists.”
And the filmmaker Bruce Beresford wrote, “[Simon] seemed to me to have more knowledge than it was possible to acquire in a lifetime, yet he was no pedant... I find John's critical writing immensely entertaining even when I'm not in agreement... More importantly, I find his reviews full of insights and perceptions that make reading a collection [of his reviews] as exciting as reading a gripping novel.”
"Not Without Merit"
When John would return to the office after a screening, Ruth or I would always ask him, “How was the movie, John?” More often than not he would wrinkle up his nose and curl his lips in distaste and denounce the film in strong language to describe his revulsion for the plot and/or the performances. Occasionally he would throw a small crumb of praise to the filmmaker and respond in his thick Serbo-Croatian accent, “It was not without merit.” To which Ruth would exclaim, “A rave!” Childish? Silly? To be sure, but entertaining nonetheless, and unforgettable. Good training, too, for dealing later with juvenile behavior by real juveniles.
I left New York in 1979 to become editor-in-chief of Condé Nast’s Street & Smith’s Sports Group. “I never even knew you liked sports that much,” said John, an avid tennis fan. We kept in touch intermittently over the years, chatting over the phone or meeting for lunch in midtown. I reminded him of his comments about my past reading choices, and always asked him for recommended books. Among those he chose were The Cloister and the Hearth, a historical novel about Erasmus, by Charles Reade; The Woodlanders, a Wessex novel by Thomas Hardy; and Evan Harrington and Diana of the Crossways, by George Meredith.
During one lunch at an eastside restaurant in the summer of 1986, a persistent fly could not be shooed away from our table.
"Did you write something nasty about Jeff Goldblum (the star of the then-current film The Fly)?" I asked him.
"Have you seen that? said John, who proceeded to slam the work.
"No, I have not," I told him. "You might have to see it, but I do not."
When John was fired by New York after 37 years, I wrote to him to express my sympathies. He was touched, and responded so warmly that his critics undoubtedly would not have recognized the heartfelt sentiments he expressed in appreciation. I cherish that letter. Some time after that, I accompanied him, at his invitation, to an Off Broadway production of New Girl in Town. During lunch before the matinee, we talked about our career paths and families. Some time after that he called to invite me to another play. But because that date was just two nights before my daughter’s wedding, I had to decline. Alas, we never did reschedule. Rest in peace, John.
To be
continued
