246
PARTISAN REVIEW
Still, when I went to sleep after our conversation I lay for
a long time wondering if there was anything in what I'd said.
Was the book about that? About death? For the life of me, if I
was going to be truthful , I couldn't see how. It troubled me. It
still troubles me. Does this book have a theme? Is a theme
essential? Can you write a great book (is there no end
to
my
narcissism!) and have it lacking in a theme, not even a little
th eme? Maybe the theme will take care of itself. But suppose
the book is published and my friends think it's trivial, theme
or no theme? Or suppose, because I'm an artist, the book gets
reviewed in the
New York T imes
by one of their art critics,
and one who happens to have a lot of contempt for me. Or
suppose it just gets one of lhose brief reviews on the back
pages of the Sunday Book Review? My first book, but I expect
to get the front pagel What does this say about me? I'll tell you
what it says, that I'm vain and arrogant and have delusions of
grandeur. Also, I have foolish dreams.
More? O.K., the truth is, I don't believe I'm vain, arro–
gant, etc. What do I really believe? I really don' t know, and
even if I did know, is it relevant? Relevance is important. Is it
important for you to know what I think of myself? I have to
think about this.
If
it seems worthwhile, I'll try to tell you
later. What I can tell you now, and maybe it's enough, is that
after I was well on the way
to
becoming rich and famous
(which I happen to be, at least moderately so), my wife, who is
now my ex-wife, was reminiscing, and she said, "Who would
have thought when I married you twenty years ago and you
didn't have a job and no prospects for even getting your art
work shown, that you would become rich and famous." She
sighed in that way she has, which is sadly.
I said
to
her, " Listen, Paulette," (Her name is really
Phyllis but she insists on being called Paulette), "I never
dreamed I would make any money from my art. But I'll tell
you, I never, ever doubted that I was a great artist."
Her mouth made the sound of a suddenly collapsed
balloon and she looked at me as if to say, "How could youl" I
never forgot that look.
It
was certainly one of the reasons I got
a divorce. You see, when we got married, my wife, who was
then a naive, middle-class WASP girl, thought she was
marrying a nice Jewish cripple who would never amount to
anything but would be nice and interesting to have around,
