My first thought after I had finished reading this book was that I wanted to read it again. I wanted not merely to hear the story again, but to stay close to the author. David Marcus's account of his own life creates a portrait of a man one is delighted to meet.
Jewishness is a recurrent theme. Although Marcus went to the Presentation Brothers School in Cork, the texts that lodged in his mind were not those of the English course, but the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses, Hebrew and the Hebrew prayers of Cheder class. "I pined for the lost Garden of Eden . . ."
Many readers will want to hear about his contact with Irish writers and Irish writing; he has been an influential and creative presence in the literary world for many years. Even as a teenager he wanted to be a writer, but received many rejection slips. That experience has helped him. For much of his adult life Marcus has fostered the work of young writers with sensitivity and care.
Only someone with his passionate interest in the short story would have founded and edited Irish Writing in the dismal 1940s. He saw the need for the periodical but, as he now realises, "My inadequacies were glaring - I had never moved in literary circles, had had next to nothing published, was unknown to writers on whose goodwill and co-operation such a venture would depend, was totally ignorant of publishing, printing and editing processes and conventions, was barely 21 - not an age to inspire others with confidence - and I lived in Cork . . . Furthermore, I was a Jew".
But he persevered, got work from the leading writers - Sean O'Faolain, Frank O'Connor, Liam O'Flaherty - and in a further effort to attract the great, wrote to Dr Edith Somerville. To his dismay he was invited to Drishane House by her nephew Sir Neville Coghill.
The chapter devoted to this meeting with a literary icon and a formidable scholar is hilarious. Marcus had never been inside a non-Jewish home, had never eaten non-kosher meat, had never drunk whiskey and had no idea how he might be expected to behave. He returned to Cork with a promise of a piece by Edith Somerville about her collaboration with Martin Ross, and with an optimistic feeling about the future of Irish Writing.
In 1954, he went to London. When he returned 13 years later he was appalled by what he found: The Bell was gone or rarely in evidence. There was no sign of Envoy, the Dublin Magazine, the Kilkenny Magazine, or the Irish Bookman. Even Irish Writing had disappeared.
He was not the kind of person to ignore this. He thought of a solution: to persuade a national newspaper to devote a full page to the short story. He outlined his plan to Tim Pat Coogan, editor of the Irish Press: "I would aim to find and develop good new writers, and to encourage them I would frequently include work from the then leading Irish writers". Coogan approved.
It was a simple formula that worked brilliantly. He could count on O'Faolain, Kiely, MacMahon, McLaverty and others who had contributed to Irish Writing to give him material for the Irish Press "New Irish Writing" page. His hope was that the page would also attract new writers. It did, a whole generation of them.
The success of the writers' page depended on his enthusiasm, but also on his integrity. He was a committed and responsible editor who devoted much time and energy to the work of new writers. When he became literary editor of the Irish Press, he was similarly attentive to detail.
But Oughtobiography is more than an account of literary encounters. It is a journey into the past to discover the author's identity. In the process one gains insight into a complex man with a discriminating mind.
As a young man he was idealistic and impetuous, but not easily thwarted. He kept Irish Writing going, despite the odds against it. Later, when Lovat Dickson, the publisher of his first novel, informed him that Sir John Squire thought it should have a different ending, Marcus did not yield. He had, he told the publisher, thought long and hard about the ending and would not alter it. As it happened Dickson agreed with him. What is significant is Marcus's determination to resist the advice of an eminent critic.
The habit of honest self-analysis is constant. When Coogan invited him to become literary editor of the Irish Press, he was scared and did everything to refuse, even though he was delighted to have been asked. He puzzles over this contradictory behaviour. "The answer was clear. I had a deep, psychological fault-line. I am afraid of failure. And deeper than that was its cause: pride. And even deeper than that was my pride's particular underlay, the ancient ghetto instinct that warned me not to venture outside the walls of self-preservation unless I could be certain that I wouldn't have to scuttle back in. In other words: Don't Fail." Never again will he turn down a challenge because of the fear of failure. It is a moment of truth whose implications go beyond the particular occasion, in both directions.
This is a book to savour for its portrayal of Irish literary life and for its portrait of a decent man whose assessment of himself is exemplary.
Maurice Harmon edits Poetry Ireland Review