Subject: Charles Fort. Part 2 of 2. May 9, 2008.
In part one of this article I said Charles Fort
re****ted in raining fish, frogs and periwinkles form
the clear sky. I looked up the definition of a
perwinkle and found three things.
1. It is a grown cover plant called Vinca. Which
has blue flowers.
2. It is a color similar to blue.
3. It is a snail or slug that is harvested and eaten
by some of the people in England other countries.
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For Tiffany Thayer, Fort was a jolly giant with "the
most magnificent sense of humor that ever made life
bearable for a thinking man." In his exuberant
introduction to BOOKS1 (1941), Thayer describes Fort as
nearly six feet tall, fair, and built like a walrus
with a matching moustache and spectacles as thick as
bottle-ends. "He was an anachronism in modern dress,"
thought Thayer who mentally placed Fort in the era of
swashbuckling Musketeers.
However, Thayer's Fort, "roaring at his subject" and
"packing a belly laugh in either typewriter hand", is
at odds with the "shy and introverted" hermit seen by
others, including Theodore Dreiser, Fort's oldest
friend.
They first met in 1905 when Dreiser was editor of
Smith's Magazine, and Fort was selling some of his
stories. Dreiser, an older and more established writer,
likened him to Oliver Hardy - "that unctuous,
ingratiating mood, those unwieldy, deferential,
twittery mannerisms were Fort's."
One of Dreiser's friends, Marguerite Tjader,
remembered Fort as "a low-set man, dark with a greasy
complexion, [with] scant black hair brushed over a
round dynamic head. His hands were fat and protruded
from filthy ****rt-cuffs under a dark nondescript suit.
In spite of all this, there was something fascinating
about him; he seemed utterly alive, carefree and
all-knowing as he talked."
Fort's biographer, Damon Knight, says Fort was "an
utterly peaceable and sedentary man [who] lived quietly
with his wife." By all accounts, Fort and Anna were an
odd couple, but they were devoted to each other.
According to Thayer, Anna lamented her husband's
unsocial bent, knew all her neighbours' affairs, and
organized their daily life with "skill and
imagination", in effect freeing Fort to follow his
star. Thayer said she never read Fort's books, nor
"ever dreamed what went on in her husband's head".
Aaron Sussman, then a young advertising executive who
became fast friend to the elderly Fort in his last
years, told Damon Knight of his visits to the Forts'
apartment in 1930. He recalled Anna as a "bustling
little hostess" who had "a lovely way of speaking to
you [making you] feel she was honored and grateful that
you had taken the time and trouble to come and see
her." To Sussman, Fort was "one of the most innocent
innocents I have ever met [..] a gentle man,
inveterately polite, very tender toward Anna." With his
deep voice and booming laugh, he gave Sussman the
impression of a great mind that had withdrawn from the
world, and yet "He always made you feel wanted; he was
delighted to see you, no matter how busy he was."
BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES ABOUT FORT
There are only two substantial sources of
biographical information about Fort.
Fort's only auto biographical writing - a fragmented
manuscript called 'Many Parts' - concerns his childhood
in Albany up to his late teens. This was rescued by Mr
X, and published in Fortean Studies, Vol.1, 1994.
Damon Knight's biography Charles Fort: Prophet of the
Unexplained (Doubleday, 1970), which relies on 'Many
Parts' for Fort's early life.
Almost as interesting, though tangential, is Tiffany
Thayer's introduction to BOOKS1, which includes
fascinating asides about Fort.
There may be many other reminiscences of Fort buried
away in the literary archives of prominent Americans
and which have yet to be discovered by some diligent
researcher - perhaps you?. For example, see...
Mike Dash, 'Charles Fort and a Man Named Dreiser,'
Fortean Times (51:40-48).
Mr X, 'The Charles Fort - John Reid Correspondence',
INFO Journal (Autumn 1994).
Most of the facts recounted in these pages come from
these sources.
Jump to annotated bibliography of
http://www.forteana.org/html/fortsbooks.html
Charles Fort's writings.
http://www.forteana.org/
The Charles Fort Institute
Part 2 of 2.
John Winston johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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