236
NORMAN MAILER
cut the morbid anomalous tissues of ill-conceived work without starting
in terror out of sleep at night at the thought of what groans and revenge
are buried in the tombs of expired books - now shakes the hand of the
critic-surgeon as he lifts his scalpel to - all ghouls awake - to sharpen
his own creative pen for the expression of his own creative urge.
Predictably, there will be New Leader Bermel to macerate the urge into
"a matchless 360 page ejaculation." Yes, the bad breath of the future
assassins can be smelled already in the wood.
Besides, the presumptive book-writer is an editor, and of a magazine
which if not universally well-liked, is perforce everywhere respected.
(Which is to say five hundred writers and spokesmen will never forgive
the editor of
Commentary
for his tastes, choice, correspondence with
them, exercise upon their manuscripts, or just general rejection of
work, ideas, unholy passions. The editor is a man known for the solidity
of his culture, the centrality of his position in the Liberal Establishment,
the depth of his sanity, sense of proportion, and independence equal
to no less than the feat of resurrecting a half-dead magazine; known as
well for the power of his friends, the warmth of his own personality,
the charm and brilliance of his wife, the lusty wit of his children, the
modesty of his own self-effacing humor - the man is endowed; wisdom
and worldliness are his; he has one foot in the stirrup of all good spirit,
and the other is on the lmeadables of the sweet ass of success. Who but a
very brave or foolhardy man would in such a fine condition sit down
to write any kind of book at a ll, who but a demented scribbler would
choose to dive through the plate-glass window of his own splendid show–
case in order to allow an outside mob of hungry assassins, literary
gung-hos, and assorted rhinoceri to come roaring in to examine the
goods with knives, feet and teeth. Who but a quivering whip-full of
masochist would dare to end such a book with the following two para–
graphs, one wretched for all of its moderate length, the other as
indigestible in its brevity as a plastic peanut?
For several years I toyed with the idea of doing a book about
Mailer that would fOCLlS on the problem of success, but in the end
I decided that if I ever did work up the nerve to write about this
problem, I would have to clo it without hiding behind him or
anyone else. Such a book, I thought, ought properly to be written
in the first person, and it ought in itself to constitute a frank
Mailer-like bid for literary distinction, fame, and money all in one
package: otherwise it Vv"Quld be unable to extricate itself from the
locks of the dirty little secret. Writing a book like that would be
a very dangerous thing to do, but someday, I told myself, I would
like to
try
doing it.
I just have.
