Ring Lardner Tonight: A postscript to "Champion" -- How it found its way into book form

The 2004 reprint of How to Write Short Stories
(whose title was suggested by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

"Scott Fitzgerald was the catalytic agent in the transformation of Ring Lardner from a journalistic funnyman to a literary figure. Just as he was to do with his next year's 'find,' Ernest Hemingway, Scott persuaded Ring and Max Perkins of Scribner's that both parties would benefit from an affiliation. The specific idea, which had apparently never occurred to Ring, was to make a book of a selection of his short stories . . . "

-- Ring Lardner Jr., in The Lardners: My Family Remembered

"I'm sorry you have had so much trouble gathering the stuff."

-- Ring, in a letter to Scribner's editor Maxwell Perkins,
referring to the grueling hunt for copies of his stories

by Ken

In the terrific introduction (which we read in two parts, first and second) that John Lardner wrote in 1958, not long before his death at 46, for a new edition of his father's You Know Me Al (of which we read the first chapter in five parts), Ring's oldest son identified a distinctly backhanded quality to the outwardly effusive praise for Ring's work by his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald (right); John further suggested, quite persuasively, a corresponding blind spot on Fitzgerald's part regarding his own work. None of which should diminish the sincerity of Fitzgerald's admiration for his friend's writing, or the crucial role he played in creating public awareness of his literary prowess.

It probably never occurred to Fitzgerald, though, as he pursued his plan to have Scribner's publish a collection of Lardner short stories, that there would be a monumental logistical problem: simply laying hands on the texts, hardly any of which the author had in his possession, either in manuscript or published magazine form. As Bill Lardner (i.e., Ring Jr., the third of Ring and Ellis's four sons) explains, his father didn't keep copies of, well, much of anything.

[A morbid note: Young as Ring (1885-1933) was when he died, Fitzgerald (1896-1940), almost 11 years his junior, would die even younger, at 44.]

FOR BILL LARDNER'S ACCOUNT OF THE PUBLICATION
OF HOW TO WRITE SHORT STORIES, CLICK HERE.


FOR RING'S PREFACE TO HOW TO WRITE SHORT STORIES (WITH SAMPLES), CLICK HERE.

FOR THE SARAH E. SPOOLDRIPPER PREFACES TO THE LOVE NEST AND THE STORY OF A WONDER MAN, CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form (tonight)

TOMORROW NIGHT: I've been thinking that with "Champion" under our belts we've got an obvious segue to Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World," but I haven't managed to plan that far ahead yet.


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: The conclusion of "Champion" -- In New York, the champ meets the press

"Just a kid; that's all he is; a regular boy. Get what I mean? Don't know the meanin' o' bad habits. Never tasted liquor in his life and would prob'bly get sick if he smelled it. Clean livin' put him up where he's at. Get what I mean? And modest and unassumin' as a school girl. He's so quiet you wouldn't never know he was round. And he'd go to jail before he'd talk about himself."

-- Midge's new manager, to a newspaper reporter,
in tonight's concluding installment of "Champion"

by Ken

"Champion" was included in the collection of Lardner stories that F. Scott Fitzgerald prevailed on his publisher, Scribner's, to put out. Probably we should have had this story when we started out. Now I'm going to save it for a little "Champion" postscript tomorrow night.

But tonight, at last, we come to the final installment of "Champion," which finds Midge in New York.


FOR PART 7 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press (tonight)
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form (coming Wednesday)

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Part 6 of "Champion" -- Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements

"'What do you want?' [Midge] demanded.

"'I guess you know,' said Lou Hersch. 'Your wife's starvin' to death and your baby's starvin' to death and I'm starvin' to death. And you're dirty with money.'"

-- in Part 6 the champ receives a visit from his
brother-in-law (it doesn't turn out well for Lou)

by Ken

We come tonight to the next-to-last installment of "Champion."

As I mentioned last night, Ring's son Bill (Ring Jr.) comments in his 1976 memoir The Lardners: My Family Remembered on the late flowering of his father's work in other languages.

The most impressive development in recent years has been the spread of his work into foreign countries. During his lifetime and for thirty years after his death, he was practically unknown outside the English-speaking world; this year [1976] there are collections of his stories on sale in France, Italy, West and East ermany, Rumania, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and a number of other countries. How full an appreciation of his work there can be in all these new languages, I am not competent to judge, but clearly some obstacles have not been surmounted:

The rhythm at least of "And he give her a look that you could pour on a waffle" is lost when it becomes "E le diede un'occhiata che avreste potuto spalmarla benissimo su una fettina di pane."

And the reader is not getting the same sense of the character speaking the line when "I've saw outfielders tooken sick with a dizzy spell" is converted to "J'ai vu des joueurs de l'extérieur avoir une attaque de vertige."

In 1975 I accepted an offer from Pakistan (of two hundred and fifty dollars, no less) for the amateur theatrical rights in the Urdu language to a revue sketch of Dad's that contains the exchange:

"Me? I was born out of wedlock."

"Mighty pretty country around there."

I'm still waiting to hear how this holds up in Urdu.

FOR PART 6 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Part 5 of "Champion" - Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger

Eh bien, c'est Le Champion!

"'And I want the deed done before I come back,' said Grace as she rose from the table. 'You won't fall down on me, will you, hon?'"

-- Grace, to Midge, in tonight's installment of "Champion"

by Ken

Hugh Laurie was on The Graham Norton Show recently (well, it was last week that we got the show -- assuming I haven't lost a week -- which means that with a favoring wind it was taped a week or so before that), just back from the continent promoting his new New Orleans-recorded blues CD, and Graham asked him about the popularity of House in Europe, which it seems is enormous. This rather surprises Hugh, who explained that he would have thought the show awfully "wordy" to survive translation, making clear that he meant "wordy" in a the best possible way, referring to the writing that makes the show so satisfying for him.

(Hugh also told a wonderful story about his last stop in Germany, where he was thronged by fans trying to get him to autograph pictures while he was trying to catch a train. When they realized that no, he wasn't going to sign any more pictures, they started tearing them up and booing -- which he was startled to discover in German comes out "Ooh! Ooh!" -- and shouted for him to leave the country, which he explained was the very thing he was trying to do.)

Now if we imagine that House is too "wordy" for non-English-speakers, what would a rational translator make of Ring Lardner -- with, say, a line like: "I'm willin' to hear what you think is fair. I don't want nobody callin' me a Sherlock." His son Bill (aka Ring Jr.) touches on this in The Lardners. We'll have that with tomorrow night's Part 6.

FOR PART 5 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Part 4 of "Champion" -- In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail

Midge picked up the stack of letters and post-cards and glanced them over. From the pile he sorted out three letters and laid them on the table. The rest he tossed into the waste-basket. Then he picked up the three and sat for a few moments holding them, while his eyes gazed off into space. At length he looked again at the three unopened letters in his hand; then he put one in his pocket and tossed the other two at the basket. They missed their target and fell on the floor.

"Hell!" said Midge, and stooping over picked them up.

-- from tonight's installment of "Champion"

by Ken

Last night we talked about the two related but distinctly different modes of "semiliterate American," as Ring Lardner Jr. called them, in which his father did most of his writing: the "as spoken" and "as written" versions. This seems to have been an experiment of sorts carried out by the senior Ring in 1916, when in "Champion" and "The Bare Facts" -- while retaining the spoken version for the characters' speech -- he switched to more or less "normal" American third-person narration, something he wouldn't then do again until 1925. So there's plenty of the spoken version, but the written version is mostly foresworn.

The signal exception comes in tonight's installment, as Midge, on the verge of finally winning his coveted championship, in a fight expected to be a cakewalk, sorts through a pile of mail and sets aside three letters. I can't say for sure that it is, but this may be my favorite part of the story.


FOR PART 4 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Part 3 of "Champion" -- In Boston, Midge makes his mark

Paul Stewart as Tommy Haley with Kirk Douglas
as Midge in the 1949 film version of Champion

"I don't need no contrac'. He knows it was me that drug him out o' the gutter and he ain't goin' to turn me down now, when he's got the dough and bound to get more. Where'd he of been at if I hadn't listened to him when he first come to me?"

-- Tommy Haley, talking to his visiting brother Dan
about Midge, in tonight's installment of "Champion"

by Ken

You'll notice that "Champion" is very different in basic form from, say, Ring's "The Young Immigrunts" or You Know Me Al, which are written entirely in what Ring Lardner Jr. identifies in The Lardners: My Family Remembered as "the two main variants of English in which almost all his work was written until about 1925": "Semiliterate American (As Written)" and "Semiliterate American (As Spoken)." Of course "Champion" relies heavily on the "as spoken" version, but the story is written in a version of "normal" American English.

Almost everything [Ring] wrote was in one of the two variations of the idiom. Even after something impelled him in 1916 to do his first two third-person stories, "Champion" and "The Facts," he decided for himself he couldn't handle the form and didn't attempt it again for nine years."

FOR PART 3 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Part 2 of "Champion" -- In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections

The 1949 film version of Champion was a great vehicle for the young Kirk Douglas. I realize I've never actually seen it, probably because I've had the impression that beyond the use of the basic plot and character names, the film doesn't have much to do with Lardner. However, this doesn't appear to have been entirely Ring Lardner Jr.'s opinion -- see below.


"Ring was not a close observer of the Hollywood product. After seeing a handful of talking pictures, he made a firm prediction that films would return to their natural state of silence once the novelty had worn off."

-- Ring Lardner Jr., in his book The Lardners:
My Family Remembered (1976)

by Ken

Tonight we continue our seven-part traversal, begun last night, of Ring's chillingly dark short story "Champion."

As Bill Lardner (i.e., Ring Jr.) explains in The Lardners, his father thought of the movies -- whether as a screenwriter himself or for adaptations of his own work -- primarily as an occasional source of extra cash, of which the family was always in need. "The price Ring set on his services," Bill writes, "was generally in inverse proportion to his esteem for the medium," and recalls the story told by James Thurber in The Years with Ross that "when [Thurber's] daughter was born at Doctors Hospital in New York in 1931, a young intern said to him: 'There's a patient here who is a writer and he says he would rather write for The New Yorker for five cents a word than for Cosmopolitan for a dollar.' Thurber asked if his name was Ring Lardner 'and the man was astonished at my perception or magic or whatever.'"

After Ring died (in 1933), Bill Lardner writes, Ellis (Bill's mother) --

made several deals with movie companies. "The Golden Honeymoon" and "Haircut" were bought but never made. Alibi Ike became a vehicle for Joe E. Brown in 1935. After the war a new company founded by Stanley Kramer and Carl Foreman produced creditable adaptations of two Lardner works. The first, So This Is New York, based on The Big Town and starring Henry Morgan, was their initial production and failed so miserably at the box office it nearly sank the company before it was fully launched. The second, Champion, put the company across and made a star of Kirk Douglas.

FOR PART 2 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: In Part 1 of "Champion," we make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly

"Champion" doesn't actually appear in Some Champions, though you have to figure that the editors who titled this 1976 collection of previously uncollected Lardner stories had the title of one of the author's most famous stories in their heads.

"The people pays their money to see the fella with the wallop."

-- Tommy Haley, Midge's first manager, in "Champion"

by Ken

It's a measure of the power of "Champion" that it disturbs me maybe as much as any piece of fiction I've read. Rereading it for the first time in a long while, I've found that it disturbs me now as much as ever, and as always, the disturbance sets in immediately as we make the acquaintance of young Michael (Midge) Kelly.

In the matter of what manner of monster exactly Midge is, one thing that struck me this time through is that while he defends himself every time his behavior is challenged -- and it's challenged often, albeit not very successfully -- he never defends the actual behavior. Instead he always, always lies about it, reinventing the event in question so that he is retrospectively not just in the right but in fact the victim.

I don't know whether this applies to bullies in general or just to this one, but it seems to me worth bearing in mind anytime we're tempted to think of Midge as a person without remorse (apparently true) or without conscience (maybe not so true, or why does he always lie about what he's done?).


FOR PART 1 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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