Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, [1965] November 24 : typescript signed.

Saying he has read her letter (see MA 23480.251) and "noted the contents" but must first tell her about an Air India stewardess he met the night before, who was "perfection" and must be used in a film some day; returning to her scathing comments on his character sketches for the beach house film (see MA 23480.199a and 199b), and pointing out that he had told her that if she didn't like them she could "put it all in the wastebasket and forget it," but "instead of that I get one of your special letters, the kind that usually reduce me to-- to, well, I don't know what exactly"; saying he is feeling too good to take offense, and had already grown bored with the characters, but going on to discuss and explain what his thoughts surrounding them were, about the fate of a certain sort of artist in India that cannot find their place, and how he finds those characters worthy of attention and empathy; speculating what Shashi and Madhur could achieve under different circumstances; reassuring her that "nobody is forcing you to do anything" and speculating that "if my poor figures have stirred you to such revulsion they may stir you to some radical improvement of them"; saying he doesn't know what some of the reports from Faie Joyce are talking about, and that Merchant is indeed house proud, and that "I think that's a very endearing trait in him"; mentioning in closing a meeting with a writer from Columbia Pictures, and asking about Pinter.