The life, thought and memories of James McConkey
“
The
Telescope in the Parlor”
on
WSKG Radio’s OFF THE PAGE
Tuesday, April 5 at 1 & 7pm
Listen to the program
now
in RealAudio© format
(requires free RealAudio© player)
We
all have memories. Few persons have shared
them as well as James McConkey. Although he would brush
off the title of “memoirist”, his acclaimed autobiographical
essays and novels tell of a life well lived and well examined. Those
writings now embrace the experiences and observations accumulated
in his 83 years. McConkey had a disjointed childhood (his
parents divorced and then remarried), he developed an early
love of books, married his wife Jean just before he was shipped
off to serve in World War II, joined the faculty of Cornell
University in 1956 and is Goldwin Smith Professor of English
Literature Emeritus.
There
is a telescope
in the parlor/study of the McConkey home in Tompkins
County where James and Jean have lived for 43 years and
raised their three sons. That telescope – not the galaxies
seen through it – became the inspiration and the title
of his newest book, The Telescope
in the Parlor. “It’s a heavy instrument to lug
out of the house into the country dark,” he states, “and
much of the wonder it brought me is now more accessible
through memory than through its eyepiece.”
Memory is not simply the wellspring of Dr. McConkey’s
writing but is often the subject itself. His observations
on memory and poetry appear in the current edition of The American Poetry Review. A 1983
collection of autobiographical stories is entitled Court
of Memory and he edited the 1996 anthology The Anatomy of Memory. Regarding
something so commonplace and yet profound, McConkey remarks
in his new book,
Memory…maybe requires the hourglass
to be turned upside down, with the past now representing
its potentiality. Memory can’t be born until enough grains
of sand have fallen into its globe to form some rudimentary
pattern of likenesses or analogies, either as feelings or
images. No doubt a desire for succor from physical wants
or spiritual needs accompanies memories so early in us they
leave no later trace. In this sense if in no other, anticipation
is born with memory itself, and so has its source in the
past.
James
McConkey joins Bill
Jaker on OFF THE PAGE to tell about his essays on
life and literature in The Telescope in the Parlor,
and to respond to listener queries. To ask a question
or offer a comment, call during the 1:00 PM broadcast
to
1-888/359-9754,
post a question here or directly to wskg.radio@gmail.com.
Listen to the program
now
in RealAudio© format
(requires free RealAudio© player)
On
the next edition of OFF THE PAGE, on April 19, Edward
Hower of Ithaca tells about “The Storms of May”, his
new novel about troubled girls in group home similar to the
ones he worked in for many years.
