486
PARTISAN REVIEW
to Arms
in his getting clean away from the carabinieri at Caporetto
by diving into the river. Later he boards a freight car carrying
guns packed in grease. A very fine rotation occurs here: "-it was
very fine under the canvas and pleasant with the guns." What is
notable about Henry's escape is that it is rotation
rai~ed
to the
third power. First, there is the American
in
Bohemia, in Paris,
in
Pamplona: he has gotten clean away from the everydayness of Virgin–
ia; next, there is los Ingles lying on a needle-covered forest floor in
the Spanish Civil War, or Tenente Henry in the Italian infantry: he
has gotten clean away from the everydayness of Bohemia; next,
there is Tenente Henry escaping the everydayness of the Italian army.
(And later even to the fourth power: Catherine and the baby die and
he gets clean away from them and walks back to the hotel in the
rain. This last is a concealed reversal, for although it is offered as an
undesired turn of events, a tragedy, it clearly would not have done
for Catherine and Henry to have settled down and raised a family.)
Hemingway's literature of rotation, escape within escape, ap–
proaches asymptotically the term of all rotation: amnesia. Amnesia
is the perfect device of rotation and is available to anyone and every–
one, in the same way that double suicide is available to any and all
tragedians. Whether it is Smitty on his way to Liverpool or Pepper
on his way to Chicago, amnesia is the supreme rotation. Who can
blame the soap-opera writer if he returns to it again and again even
after he has been kidded about it? Life in Elmwood with Linda
and Father and Mother Young achieves a degree of alienation such
as was never dreamed of by Joseph K. in Mitteleuropa; the difference
between them is nothing less than the difference between the despair
that knows itself and the despair that does not know itself. Since
Bohemia is despised by Pepper, since also the zone-sanctuaries of the
Mississippi, Steinbeck's friendly whorehouse, Nathan's toolshed, and
the Bomb are closed to him; and since the obvious alternative to life
in .
Elmwood, suicide, is also unacceptable--only amnesia remains.
From the literal everydayness of the soap opera, amnesia is the one,
the only, the perfect rotation. Yet medically speaking, amnesia,
attractive though it is as a rotative device, is not its final asymptotic
term. For, though it is very gratifying for Pepper to come to himself
while walking in Grant Park and with no recollection of Linda, and
though it is all very well for him to meet
her,
the stranger,
to
conceal
