624
PARTISAN REVIEW
sea o f words," "a wildwa ter o f words, a cata ract, a volcano, a torrent, an
earthquake," hi s " tongue like a 400 horsepower motor. " Mail er has
mistaken his proper spiritual ances to rs. His na tura l endowment, hi s
quality as an intelligence ra ther than as a compul sion , sho uld have
made him an heir not of Celine and Mill er, but o f those mama's-boys,
Proust, Joyce, and Mann. "A bona fide philosophical novelist like
Proust or Joyce or Mann ," says Mail er, " has a mind whi ch permeates
his work like an herb ." And Mann has told us how such a writer goes
to
work . He sits down each morning, full of fea r and trembling before the
ghos ts o f habitual usage tha t h aunt the echo ing co rrido rs o f each new
word . These ghosts are seducti ve and tenacious. T he writer who would
exo rcize them cannot work in a trance. " 1 put down everything which
came into my mind, whether it made sense or no t," says Henry, bu t his
a im is a
Wa lpurgisnacht.
His way is no t the way to rout habitual usage
with new meaning, sa turate words with con sciousness, permeate them
with mind, construct a world of words tha t is a reproach
to
the other
one. Each word has
to
be empti ed and refill ed separa tely. The work
goes slowl y.
1 am no t ready to venture the presumption o f da ring Ma il er to risk
fi ve, eight, a dozen years on " tha t huge novel he had promi sed to begin
so many times." 1 don ' t know an yone who is, unl ess it be Mail er
himse lf. T ha t ri sk is one of the few offered him tha t he has not taken.
No doubt he has taken more than enough of them; he h as a right
to
sit
on hi s record. But can he afford to? My guess is tha t an honorable
defea t wo uld cost him less in hi s own accounting than to wa lk away
from the dare. And think of the celebrations in the soul if he should go
the limit with his doubt and cop the decision . T here would be a
number of us ready
to
raise a glass.
