The Broken Arch, a 1964 draft of an unpublished work by Lorrie Tussman exploring the theme of unity in Western civilization based on the writings of Henry Adams, providing a powerful critique of the Western logic of antithesis.
Read The Broken Arch (pdf format)
From the book….
“My life is a broken arch,” Henry Adams wrote at the beginning of this century. And today Jean-Paul Sartre writes these words in an essay about the art of Giacometti:
Between things as between man, the bridges are broken, and emptiness seeps in everywhere, every creature concealing his own.
Sartre sees Giacometti struggling with the problem of the insuperable distances and solitudes between objects and individuals as a result of the broken architecture of the cosmos.
A line is used to separate the container from the contained. But vacuum does not contain…He (the Object) is there, the wall is there, and that is all. Nothing encloses, supports or contains him. He appears, all alone, within an immense frame of empty space.
The problem of Giacometti is essentially the problem of creation without perspective. How is the artist to define an object that exists only in itself…an object without connections, without external relationships…form not in relationship to other forms and to space, but form en vacuo? In other words, how is the artist to define that which is free?
The paradox is not only one of art but in the widest sense of life itself. How are we to define either ourselves or others if we are freed from our traditional contexts and connections? How are we to understand life itself without a common perspective?
George Braziller, Inc.
One Park Avenue, New York 16, N.Y.
May 17, 1965
Dear Mrs. Tussman:
You may recall that almost a year ago I wrote you that I had read the early chapters of your book, The Broken Arch, which you were kind enough to send me and that I was looking forward to reading further chapters.
What I read interested me very much. I wonder if you have gone further with the book and, if so, I might see more of the manuscript?
Sincerely,
Edwin Seaver
George Braziller, Inc.
One Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016
June 14, 1965
Dear Mrs. Tussman:
Thank you for your lettter of the sixth. Yes, I would very much like to see your manuscript when you think it is ready. Perhaps as you “rework it a bit” the unity you require will become more apparent.
Incidentally, although you stated in your original letter that our publishing Vahanian’s The Death of God led you to think of us as possible publishers for your own book you said nothing of your particular background or academic or professional concern. Perhaps when you have a moment you will write me about this,
Sincerely,
Edwin Seaver
George Braziller, Inc.
One Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016
January 10, 1967
Dear Mrs. Tussman:
To my regret, the editorial decision here has been in the negative on THE BROKEN ARCH. The editors liked the first approach (original pages 1-61) better than the complete manuscript, but felt that the latter needed considerably more work.
I am therefore, returning the two manuscripts, under separate cover, and can only express the hope that you will persevere in your efforts to make them into a viable book.
Sincerely,
Edwin Seaver