James Salter Reads From "Burning the Days." | 92Y Performing Arts

James Salter Reads From "Burning the Days." | 92Y Performing Arts - Readings

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92Y.org/Readings | From the Poetry Center Archive: James Salter-A Great American Writer. Reading from "Burning the Days." | Recorded March 31, 1997
"If he can be described as a writer's writer," said Susan Sontag that night, as she introduced James Salter, "then I think it's just as true to say he's a reader's writer; that is, he's a writer who particularly rewards those for whom reading is an intense pleasure and something that is a bit of an addiction. I myself put James Salter among the very few North American writers all of whose work I want to read and whose as yet unpublished books I wait for impatiently . . . In the case of James Salter, I crave more of those sentences and paragraphs which I wish I had written or were capable of writing."
A similar sense of admiration touched with envy can be found in today's recording, which places Salter the young soldier on a train in the 1950s reading an old copy of Mademoiselle in which Dylan Thomas's play "Under Milk Wood" has been excerpted. "The words dizzied me-their grandeur, their wit," Salter reads. "In the soft, clicking comfort of the train, I feasted on it all. The drops of rain became streaks as the dazzling voices spoke. House-wives, shop-keepers, shrews, Captain Cat the blind, retired sea-captain dreaming of a strumpet Rosie Probert-'C'mon up, boys. I'm dead!' It was an unforgettable performance, singing on and on."
Salter knew, of course, that he was reading about the play from the very stage where it was first performed-by Thomas and others-in 1953. Some sixty years on, it's the same stage Salter and Ford will be returning to Monday night.
In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments the Unterberg Poetry Center has presented across the decades, we have begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. To access other recordings on our Virtual Poetry Center, visit here: 92Y.org/VPC