ISAAC ROSENFELD
25
are not expressed or released in the prose, where they are dammed up,
they tend to explode in the form of strong, striking images.
Conversely, where the flow
&
release of feelings is steady, where
feeling is in large part the subject matter, images tend to disappear,
figures of speech even drop out or are met with rarely. Thus Tolstoy, in
whom such imagery is low. The feelings are released. There is little left
for imagery to draw on. But when there is a temporary interruption in
the stream, when his feelings on a subject cannot be entirely
expressed-you do get an image, like the sudden, startling one of the
murderer, after Vronsky
&
Anna have intercourse for the first time. Or
the image, "like a dog trained to jump through the hoop," apropos of
Levin's marriage.
This does not, however, apply to symbolism, which goes on,
&
proceeds from, a deeper level, an unconscious level. Feelings are but the
conscious manifestation of the unconscious process.
Kafka, Gogol, etc. -feelings held back; bright images.
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, etc.-feelings released; low image content.
The defeat of Dewey delighted me; the extent of the pleasure I took
in it was an even greater surprise to me than the unexpected outcome.
In the morning, waiting with Nitsa on the corner for the bus to take her
to
school, I laughed
&
sang, "Ho-ho-ho-goody-goody-goody" as if to
answer my daughter (she repeated it, laughing), but in reality to
confound the two glum men
&
the woman, obviously Republicans,
with heavy, bitler, hateful, purplish faces, tense as a fist, who were also
waiting for the bus. I gloated
&
rejoiced as if this were somehow my
triumph over mediocrity in the form of that ambitions side of back–
bacon, little Tom. Oh, how I danced in glee! Not that I cared a shit for
Harry, but Dewey-ho-ho-hooool That chilly, gelid, pompous excres–
cence of secondary processes, that turd of a fish in rain water! His
humiliation was my joy, the thought of him sitting up all night by the
radio, his carefully prepared speech of acceptance-"The people have
made up their minds and acted. Unity! Liberty! Security! A sound
foreign policyl"-folded in his breast pocket, his teeth aching with
dismay, his face freezing, the very moustache of a crewcropped cunt
ready to wilt and drop o££-Oh brother, remember me at mealtime
when you daily sit down to your plate of shit! It is for me, for me only,
you parboiled goose, that you have strutted in your elevator shoes, and
driven your one implacable, all-devouring ambition, which has shaped
not only your obscene life, but your very skull, changing the contour of
the back of your head into a dominating rigidity, mama 's boy, over
