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MAILER
book. Besides the thesis itself, if novel, did not seem quite accurate. It
was the sort of illumination which could apply for particular Establish–
mentarians, but was utterly inapplicable for others: indeed, the Family
as a whole gave off the aura of all Establishments - they were obviously
as interested in success as any other bank. While they did not talk a
great deal about it, and were reasonably dialectical about money–
resenting Mary McCarthy's modest haul, while not at all unimpressed
with the size of Capote's - it would have been not impossible to defend
the opposite thesis that the need for success in one's metier was so taken
for granted in these salons that there was no necessity any longer to
talk about it.
It is better to chase our little mystery by remembering that Establish–
mentarians please their peers when they write works of symbolic intensity
like Trilling's
The Middle of the Journey
or memoirs of unsurpassed
sweetness like Kazin's
A Walker in the City.
They charm when they
write trivia about New York with agreeable tone - as in J ason Epstein's
fillip for
The N ew York Review,
they impress when their theses are
rich in reference, comprehensive, original and assertive, as are H arold
Rosenberg's on New York art. Indeed Establishment writers displease
the Family only when they fail to present themselves as critical, intel–
ligent, superior, and
in their cool.
The only piece remotely comparable
in its innocent assault on the total temper of the Family was Diana
Trilling's account of going to hear Allen Ginsberg read his poetry
at Columbia. That is writing
with
such simplicity of affect and
directness of response that it may live longer in literature than any–
thing else by the lady - it has the tone of enduring literature - yet it
was loathed in its time, loathed one may suspect for the defenselessness
of its approach since Diana presented herself not as a distinguished
critic (which had hitherto been implicit in her style) but as a bewildered
faculty wife: the Establishment reacted as if they were being thereby
sucked down into a mucker's muck.
So we may as well assume that the lightnings Podhoretz aroused
came not because he was revealing the dirty little secret of others, but
because he was exposing himself, and this act of self-exposure was
received by The Family as a treason - one simply did not go around
explaining any member of the clan. To do that was to weaken 'all.
It is easier
to
comprehend if we think of the Rockefellers or the
Fords, or any other gathering of wealth. Exposure by any member of
such families is odious to the rest because their power - to themselves
at least, as a reflection perhaps of their guilt - rests on a fragile base.
Let us assume the same for our own Establishment. They came into be–
ing almost by accident for they began as left-wing militants interested
