MAKING IT
237
Yes, who could commit such a blunder of self-assertion, self–
exposure, and self-denigration but myoid dear great and
good
friend
Norman Podhoretz who brings the mind of a major engineer to
elucidating the character of complex literary structures but would
seek–
for such is the innocence of his good heart - to climb the Matterhorn
on ice skates.
Now, of course,
if
Podhoretz' great and good friend Norman Mailer
is to say this now, it is with wisdom which comes after the fact. For
Making It,
taken on its own terms, while never possessing a chance for
real fame and real literary distinction (because of flaws to be yet dis–
cussed) is, seen by a dispassionate eye in manuscript or galleys (and no
eye so dispassionate as the look of an old friend) is,
Making
It
is, yes, a
perfectly decent and honorable book very well written for much of its
length, and respectably written for the rest except for ten or twelve
isolated phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, so unhappy, ill-chosen, and
aggressively flatulen t that no reviewer with an eye to the cruel could
fail to notice, and not even the kindest of critics would be ready to de–
fend them. Small wonder tha.t these miserable phrases crop up again
and again in every review, thereby giving the impression of a graceless,
malodorous, repulsive, offensive, self-aggrandizing work when
in
fact
the overall style is - but for these scattered criminal lapses - a style
restrained, cool, self-observant, modest, dispassionate, analytical and
gifted with an agreeable variety of aperc;us on matters such as status,
class, privilege, and clan.
It
is an interesting book, very interesting
in
its way, and offensive not at all except for its precise lack of offensive
threat, which irritates in about th.e way of any defenseless presentation.
In summation its only thundering demerit is that it is not a great or
major book, a nd it may be that nothing less was required for a literary
venture by an Establishmentarian critic and editor in Podhoretz' position
than to produce just such an overpowering work. Probably nothing less
would have done. Instead, Podhoretz by a major effort of will against
what must have been the rock-quaking tremors of his own heart,
produced a minor work of much excellence, seriously flawed'. It was
doubtless an expensive book for the author - so much energy spent, so
little fame; so much talk, so little good will; but great authors like great
generals can be tempered
by
disastrous campaigns as well as vktories;
it is - wipe the old metaphor - exactly when an author begins
to
think
not of the blow he will take to his own liver, but the shot he will deliver
to the target, that he is ready for real literary game. Podhoretz is
sufficiently sturdy, honorable, clear-eyed and' talented to deserve the most
thorough going-over, provided the attack is clean, and offers the dignity
