620
PARTISAN REVIEW
Writers or not, at this moment we probably need Norman more
than we still need Henry, for if Henry is a force, Norman is an
intelligence. Whereas Henry is only an impetus, Norman is a choice. In
a review of
Making
It,
Norman Mailer (not " Norman") explains to
Norman Podhoretz what it is like to write a book in mid-career with
oneself as the protagonist. Such a writer "can comprehend, no, rather
he can deal with himself as a literary object, as the name of that man
who goes through his pages, only by creating himself as a
literary
character, fully so much as any literary character in a work of indis–
puted fiction." Such a protagonist changes and is changed by what he
encounters. He discovers the writer to himself, recreates him, is
recrea ted by him, reciprocally recreates. "But it is not an easy job !"
An overload of choices descends on the brain of any ambilious man
engaged in giving a comemious portrail of himself. Yel lhal is nOl
even the worSl of the difficulLy. The real woe is lhal one is forced lO
examine oneself exislemially, perceive oneself in the aCl of perceiv–
ing (bul worse, far worse-lhrough the acl of perceiving, perceive a
Self who may manage
La
represem the separale warring selves by a
Slyle). IL is necessary lO voyage lhrough the fluorescem underground
of the mind, lhal arena of self-consciousness where Sanre grappled
wilh the
pour-soi
and the
en-soi;
imellections consuming flesh ,
consciousness the negation, yes, the very consumption of being. One
is digesting one's own gut in such an endeavor.
Gut becomes a consciousness, a self-conscious consciousness, and
a conscience. We hold Norman responsible for everything he does, as
he holds himself, because he knows what he is doing and chooses
to
do
it. We forgive the Gut everything, as he forgives himself, because he
had no choice, because he never perceived himself in the act of
perceiving. Norman evolved a philosophy of risk, a theory that "man
was a spirit of unrest who proceeded to become less masculine when–
ever he ceased to strive." But Henry's philosophy of Gut knows that all
aspiration is a trap, that "there are some of us so cowardly that you
can't ever make heroes of us, not even if you frighten us to death."
Above all, Norman knows that "the real heroism. .. was to under–
stand, and because one understood, be even more full of fear at the
enormity of what one understood, yet at that moment continue
to
be
ready for the feat one had decided it was essential to perform." But the
Henry we know would be paralyzed by an understanding of his
compulsion or would become someone else. Norman 's moods are
governed by anxiety, Henry's by panic. Norman is concerned about
everything, from our architecture to God to the texture of our shit.
H enry has remained true to the program of
Booster,
a journal he edited
