Arts and Letters

In 1927 I went to Paris with my husband, Arthur Kober, on our honeymoon. Arthur Kober had written a number of interesting pieces for The New Yorker and, of course, Janet Flanner, under the name Genet, with her letter from Paris, was a most important contributor to that distinguished list that made up the early days of the magazine.

I have no memory of how we first got in touch with each other, although, of course, it had to do with Arthur and Janet both working for The New Yorker. But I do remember the first dinner we had together. I was very young then, but even if I had been middle-aged I would have been impressed with an American who talked such excellent French, who knew so many people whose books I had read but had, of course, never met, who carried herself with such flourish and confidence that did not intrude on the fine manners. She was a woman who seemed to have read everything, even the book reviews that I had done for the early Herald book section, when it was edited by Irita Van Doren. It was remarkable that Janet knew anything about my reviews, because they were usually buried in the back of the book, and almost always about the latest in the world's passing chic. I was known as the Ronald Firbank reviewer. My only boast in looking back—and indeed it must have been a mistake of some kind—was that I was given William Faulkner's first book Mosquitos and predicted that the author would come to something.

In the years between those first meetings and the time she died, I saw Janet Flanner many, many times, although we were never close friends because we lived in different cities. But I never went to Paris without telephoning her immediately and seeing her for many pleasant dinners or having long walks.

As the years mounted so, of course, did the crises of Europe and she saw and reported all of them with great accuracy. More important perhaps—there were many journalists to report the gradual rise of European fascism—I think she did something that few others ever accomplished: she saw through even the best of her own generation and reported what she saw with tolerance and without malice.

Women are a strange breed. And while I have possibly felt more sympathy for them than I have for men, I have understood them less, perhaps because they come in greater varieties than men. In Janet's day and even now women of true talent have a harder boat to row. I do not at all mean most of the troubles put forward by the Women's Liberation Movement. I mean simply that it is nice to be a woman and rewarding, but it is not easy to convince men that you can do anything complex. Within Janet Flanner's lifetime, of course, the role of women became easier, and she was one of the women who most helped to make it so.

Somewhere along the way the memorable, loveable, and nutty Mr. Harold Ross, editor of The New Yorker, deserves credit for seeing the great virtues in Flanner's work. It is good that most of literary Europe and America thought highly of Janet and what she did. But in the end that is not of major importance because it too often is a question of fashion. What is important is that we all still respect her work. I liked her enormously, was amused and pleased by her, and I think that what she wrote will be read a long time from now as an important interpretation of the times in which she lived.

There are certain people that one does not think of as ever being dead. And there are certain people who, as long as you live, will never be dead. Janet Flanner is not dead for me: the remarkable face, the wonderfully tailored suits, the sharp wit, the generosity, are as good today as they were years ago. It has to be said in truth that I was never so-called close to Janet Flanner. It is therefore even more remarkable that Janet Flanner seems to have always been in my life, from that night in 1927 until the day last year when I was honored to be asked to speak at her funeral.

Now, on this occasion, I send her love and respect and I refuse to say goodbye to her.