{"id":2547,"date":"2015-06-11T04:06:21","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T04:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/group\/bookclub\/cgi-bin\/wordpress\/?p=2547"},"modified":"2015-08-14T18:28:37","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T18:28:37","slug":"so-long-see-you-tomorrow-toby-an-evening-of-camus-crowds-and-a-fond-farewells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/?p=2547","title":{"rendered":"So long see you tomorrow, Toby! An evening of Camus, crowds, and a fond farewells"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

I present some surprises to Toby. Another Look\u2019s graphic designer Zo\u00eb Patrick at left. (Photo: David Schwartz)<\/p><\/div>\n

Stanford\u2019s Another Look book club was born of one man\u2019s love for a short novel \u2013 that is, acclaimed author\u00a0Tobias Wolff<\/strong><\/a>\u2018s love of\u00a0William Maxwell<\/a><\/strong>‘s\u00a0So Long See You Tomorrow<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0which became the first book discussed in the three-year series. He wanted to share the book not just with colleagues, but the the world. He called Another Look \u201ca gift to the community.\u201d (We\u2019ve written about it\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and a zillion other places).<\/p>\n

So it was fitting that we concluded the era Toby\u2019s directorship with a Maxwell tribute. Why \u201csee you tomorrow\u201d? Because he\u2019s not going far. He\u2019s simply beginning his well-earned retirement. He\u2019ll be around. Meanwhile, the future of the highly successful program he founded is uncertain. We\u2019ll see what happens. Cross your fingers. Burn incense. Whatever works.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Toby begins \u2013 a little amazed at the turn-out. (Photo: D. Schwartz)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Monday\u00a0discussion of\u00a0Albert Camus<\/strong>\u2018\u00a0The Stranger<\/em><\/a>\u00a0was a knockout event \u2013 the turn-out beyond anything we had anticipated. It was way beyond standing room only. The room was impassable, with a mob in the doorway, and another outside the sliding doors to the patio, opened so a smaller crowd could listen in. People sat on the floor in the aisles. There was no place in the room that didn\u2019t have people in it. (I squatted behind the podium and couldn\u2019t see anyone on the panel \u2013 you could say I had audio, but not visual, reception.) It was, in short, a love-bomb.<\/p>\n

The photos above and below don\u2019t quite capture the size of the crowd photographer\u00a0David Schwartz<\/strong>, who happened to be in the audience, didn\u2019t have much choice about what he could capture at all. The fans who were lucky enough to have seats were so jam-packed that he couldn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n

David couldn\u2019t photograph all three panelists together \u2013 so we augment his photos with one of\u00a0Marie-Pierre Ulloa<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/strong>a scholar of French intellectual life in 20th-century Algeria,\u00a0taken by\u00a0Remmelt Pit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

No surprise that the discussion was lively and wide-ranging. Intellectual and cultural historian\u00a0Caroline Winterer<\/strong>, director of the Stanford Humanities Center,\u00a0and Toby are old friends, as their spirited exchanges show in the photos. The audience was bubbling with questions \u2013 more than the panelists could possibly answer. Many of them focused on the four extra shots fired by Meursault into the Arab \u2013 in\u00a0Matthew Ward<\/strong><\/a>\u2018s esteemed \u201cAmerican\u201d translation (read about him\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>) is rendered \u201cAnd it was like knocking four quick times on the door of\u00a0unhappiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>All in all, it was a wonderful send-off for Toby\u2019s retirement \u2013 we presented him with a signed first edition of the late William Maxwell\u2019s\u00a0The Outermost Dream<\/em>, a collection of his essays from\u00a0The New Yorker \u2013\u00a0<\/em>fitting, because Toby himself is a regular contributor to the magazine.<\/p>\n

But the bigger surprise of the evening was the edition of Maxwell\u2019s later novels from\u00a0Brookie and Kate Maxwell<\/strong>, the author\u2019s daughters, who have appreciated Toby\u2019s attention to their father\u2019s legacy, and his efforts for Another Look more generally. Brookie, also a photographer, included a photograph of her father that she had taken \u2013 the photograph with the kitten; you can see it\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Teamwork: Toby and Caroline. (Photo: David Schwartz)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A spirited exchange between Toby and Caroline (Photo: David Schwartz)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Toby makes a face; Marie-Pierre giggles. (Photo: Remmelt Pit)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stanford\u2019s Another Look book club was born of one man\u2019s love for a short novel \u2013 that is, acclaimed author\u00a0Tobias Wolff\u2018s love of\u00a0William Maxwell‘s\u00a0So Long See You Tomorrow,\u00a0which became the first book discussed in the three-year series. He wanted to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[35,37,39,41,43,45],"class_list":["post-2547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-albert-camus","tag-caroline-winterer","tag-marie-pierre-ulloa","tag-matthew-ward","tag-tobias-wolff","tag-william-maxwell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}