Books like In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories

Bi-Partisan PreviewI was introduced to Delmore Schwartz's writing from two different perspectives in the mid-70's.It might come as little surprise that these introductions had to do with passions that persist to this day: music, literature and politics.Firstly, I discovered that Schwartz had been one of Lou Reed's lecturers at Syracuse University and was the inspiration for his Velvet Underground song, "European Son".Secondly, in 1976, I located the back issues of the political and literary magazine, "Partisan Review", in my University Library and proceeded to read each copy from cover to cover. I would spend two or three hours in the Library every Friday afternoon, before joining my friends in the Union Bar to watch a band and whatever else students do in bars.Partisan Review originally commenced publication in 1934, before splitting from the John Reed Club, after which it went through a hiatus (presumably while it sought funding) and resumed publication in 1937.Despite this history, the first 1937 issue is often thought of as the first issue of the magazine, partly because by now it had become vaguely Trotskyist, but definitely anti-Stalinist, a major departure from its origins as a political and cultural vehicle for a pro-Soviet lobby group.This background is relevant to Delmore Schwartz, because his story, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities", was chosen by an eminent board as the first item in the first issue, notwithstanding that he was only 21 when he wrote it and 23 when it was published.In the Womb of the CinemaThe story commences: "I think it is the year 1909. I feel as if I were in a motion picture theatre..."The narrator is watching a silent movie. In the dark:"I am anonymous, and I have forgotten myself. It is always so when one goes to the movies, it is, as they say, a drug."Two things are notable about this. On the one hand, it is in the very early days of film and motion picture theatres. On the other, the year is four years before the author himself was born.While we shouldn't assume that the narrator is the author or co-temporal with them, it soon becomes clear that the narrator is watching a film about his parents' relationship before he was born (we learn this half way down page two).I love this set-up. A literary meta-fiction that incorporates another medium such as film, which was still in its infancy at the time.Too Much Carrying On [Potential Spoiler Warning for This Section]Anticipating his own miserable future, the narrator tries to deter his parents from starting a relationship, the logical consequence of which would have been that he would never have been born.Yet, all he can do is protest powerlessly at the movie screen. He must be born. He cannot intervene in his own birth. After all, he must be alive in order to have the dream.Nevertheless, his protest attracts the attention of the usher, who admonishes him:"...you can't carry on like this, it is not right, you will find that out soon enough, everything you do matters too much..."Enter a Free and Responsible BeingIn the process of being expelled from the theatre, he awakes on the morning of his 21st birthday.He is now officially an adult. He is responsible for his own conduct, not his parents. From now on, he can blame nobody but himself. He cannot intervene, in his dreams or in reality, in the lives of anybody else in order to influence what happens in his own life. Now he is his own cause and effect.In dreams such as this begin the consciousness of responsibility. The ego emerges from the id. Existentialism leads us to responsibility. I am responsible for myself and I must now act responsibly. I am alive and ready to embark on my adult life of self-reliance. I am free.A Reading by Lou Reed:http://www.loureed.com/news/listen-to...An Article about Lou Reed's Introduction to the Collectionhttp://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-...An Article about Delmore Schwartz in the Jewish Quarterlyhttp://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10...