One day Birgit phoned Don from Denmark to talk about Kierkegaard, and he found himself, once more, in a mentorship role with his ex-wife. In a piece Birgit eventually published in a journal called Kierkegaardiana Kierkegaardiana, her musings on irony are identical to Don"s summary of it in "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel."
The ironist, Birgit later wrote-possibly thinking of her ex-husband-is a man who "sees everything as possibility and nothing mundane is allowed to drag him down."
To his neighbors, Don was now a familiar presence, his daily appearances on the street another aspect of his sagacious demeanor. The novelist David Markson says, "I lived over near Sixth, and so I"d frequently walk up West Eleventh and we"d run into each other. He was a famous writer, and I had no reputation at all, so I was always kind of quiet around him. He was the the Donald Barthelme. Once, I was walking with my daughter, who was about sixteen at the time, and we b.u.mped into him. Afterward, she asked me who he was and I told her, and she said, "Dad! You didn"t even introduce me! My friends and I love his work!" Donald Barthelme. Once, I was walking with my daughter, who was about sixteen at the time, and we b.u.mped into him. Afterward, she asked me who he was and I told her, and she said, "Dad! You didn"t even introduce me! My friends and I love his work!"
"One time, Faith Sale pa.s.sed this message on to my wife; she said, "Donald Barthelme wants you to please tell David Markson that he"s not always always coming out of that liquor store where you frequently see him"-probably Lamanna"s, on Sixth. "It was very funny," Markson says. "I, of course, went to a coming out of that liquor store where you frequently see him"-probably Lamanna"s, on Sixth. "It was very funny," Markson says. "I, of course, went to a different different liquor store, and was probably there more often than Don was in his!" liquor store, and was probably there more often than Don was in his!"
Ann Beattie was now a regular, if infrequent, guest in Don"s apartment, or he and Marion would go over to her place for dinner. One night, while Beattie cooked for them, she felt "exorcized," she said, because she"d "just finished [reading] Poets in Their Youth Poets in Their Youth."
Poets in Their Youth is Eileen Simpson"s memoir of John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, Delmore Schwartz, and others. The book details the heavy drinking and nervous breakdowns that anguished these poets. At the end, Simpson pictures the poets" idea of heaven. They would all be together and they would "recite one another"s poems and talk for hours on end, free at last of worldly concerns about where the next advance, the next drink, the next girl or even the next inspiration would come from-free at last to be obsessed with poetry." is Eileen Simpson"s memoir of John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, Delmore Schwartz, and others. The book details the heavy drinking and nervous breakdowns that anguished these poets. At the end, Simpson pictures the poets" idea of heaven. They would all be together and they would "recite one another"s poems and talk for hours on end, free at last of worldly concerns about where the next advance, the next drink, the next girl or even the next inspiration would come from-free at last to be obsessed with poetry."
"I thought the ending must be meant ironically," Beattie says. Don shot her a pained look. "He despaired of me," she admits.
47.
THE END OF AN AGE.
In August 1977, Roger Angell returned a story of Don"s called "Tenebrae." Pa.s.sing on this "was a hard decision," he said. The story contained material that would resurface in "Great Days" and "The Farewell Party." It was pure dialogue, without exposition or identifiable characters. Angell recognized that "Tenebrae" was "a serious work" and that it was a "new form" for Don. It also had "some long and lovely pa.s.sages and some short and funny ones that [I] admire extravagantly." But after several readings, the story remained "private and largely abstract" to Angell, and he felt "let down or simply bored by pa.s.sages that meant very little and that sometimes almost appeared to go on just because it was easier for [Don] to continue them than to cut them off."
Angell knew the rejection would be a blow to Don because, as he wrote him, "you told me that this is the direction that your work is taking now and may be taking for some time to come. Well, maybe we"ll learn to read you. It won"t be the first time that that happened." happened."
This news came on the heels of some very public attacks on Don"s work. Josephine Hendlin, writing in Harper"s Harper"s, said that Don felt "such disdain for life he aestheticizes even his depression." In Matters of Fact and Fiction Matters of Fact and Fiction, Gore Vidal claimed that Don "writes only about the writing he is writing...[and] I [am] put off by the pictures."
Don"s new dialogue stories would only embolden his critics. The stories edged toward complete abstraction. Conversations in medias res, they risked, even flirted with, randomness.
In 1978, John Gardner published On Moral Fiction On Moral Fiction. Don described it as a St. Valentine"s Day Ma.s.sacre: "John took all his contemporaries into a garage and machine-gunned us all-with full moral intent, I"m sure." Gardner dismissed his peers on the grounds that their writing stank of moral rot. The ironic laughter in Don"s stories was "enfeebled," he said: "He knows what is wrong [with the world] but he has no clear image of, or interest in, how things ought to be."
The Barthelme backlash of the late 1970s occurred for several reasons, obvious in retrospect. First, praise and then scorn is a natural journalistic cycle: switching the poles of a story in order to keep the story "new" (a worm in the apple of celebrity). As a former newspaper man, Don knew the rhythm well.
Second, some writers clear paths for their work by slaying whatever moves (Don had once taken shots at Graham Greene and John Kenneth Galbraith). At the time of On Moral Fiction On Moral Fiction, Gardner was a frustrated novelist who believed his work hadn"t received its due; he had published a book on Chaucer whose originality had been questioned by academics. He demanded respectability. Third, the excitement of the linguistic daring that had distinguished Vonnegut, Barth, Pynchon, Don, and others had worn off. Each of these writers was now settling into the style or styles he had forged for himself-an intensely interesting movement, but no longer novel.
Perhaps more than anything else, constriction-of a political nature-had seized the culture. Willie Morris (fired by Harper"s Harper"s for publishing "provocative" essays) put it this way: America"s "[idealistic] party was pretty much over" and the nation was suffering a hangover. for publishing "provocative" essays) put it this way: America"s "[idealistic] party was pretty much over" and the nation was suffering a hangover.
All along the political scale, the suspicion spread that America had gone too far. We had overindulged in the sixties and early seventies, and now we"d have to pay (there was, the media claimed, a very real "energy crisis"). It is remarkable how often Don"s critics worried about his "morals" instead of his literary ability.
Don felt a winding down. "[E]verything in New York City is getting shabbier and rattier and rattier," he said. "My eyes are getting worse. Everything"s Everything"s getting worse. My back hurts. getting worse. My back hurts. Everybody"s Everybody"s back hurts. back hurts.
"Aside from that, the physical surround is deteriorating. And beyond that, I feel a deterioration of the world"s mental life. I think it"s a shared perception; it"s brought up in Christopher Lasch"s book The Culture of Narcissism The Culture of Narcissism. Everybody seems to agree that everything is getting worse. Of course the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Elizabethans also complained that things were falling apart. But I think here everything is is getting worse." getting worse."
Thus the dialogues. They were not a turning away from the world but a turning toward turning toward something, a purer search for transcendence, which had always occupied Don, whatever else he had been up to. something, a purer search for transcendence, which had always occupied Don, whatever else he had been up to.
In the past, "I have" often been "a realist, a Dreiserian chronicler of historical time," Don insisted, and as evidence he could point to all the details in his work: student rebellions, the "new music," urbanism....
With the dialogues, Don was seeking "something...beyond [emphasis added] which I haven"t figured out yet....I know it"s there and I can"t quite get there...." He was drawn to the "poetic" possibilities of dialogue that had opened to him in composing the ladies" voices in [emphasis added] which I haven"t figured out yet....I know it"s there and I can"t quite get there...." He was drawn to the "poetic" possibilities of dialogue that had opened to him in composing the ladies" voices in The Dead Father The Dead Father.
While Marion was still working for Time Time, the magazine began pressuring her to "live and work in other cities/bureaus like other correspondents," she says. She needed to make plans.
She asked Don what he wanted to do. New York City was getting "rattier," but Don didn"t want to leave it.
What about marriage? He had written in "Rebecca" that love is "an incredibly dangerous and delicate business" and he had once said that "The Rise of Capitalism" was about "incredibly beautiful and good women who are moving toward a rather terrible destiny and a kind of disenchantment."
If these remarks betrayed hard-earned doubts about marriage, the enthusiast in him felt otherwise: "Show me a man who has not married a hundred times, and I"ll show you a wretch who does not deserve G.o.d"s good world."
Occasionally now, Helen Moore Barthelme spoke to Don on the phone. He told her about Marion. "Although reluctant to marry again, he was considering it," Helen recalled. "He said that Marion wanted marriage and he thought it was the "right" thing to do."
One day, in June 1978, Steve Barthelme called Helen to tell her that Don was planning to marry. Steve worked for Helen"s ad agency now, and he "thought [she] should know" about Don. "A few days later, I called to wish Don well," Helen said. "He was pleased and then laughed because the marriage was to take place that very evening. In fact, he was delighted that his mother and father were in town for the ceremony. He was at that moment "scrubbing the john" as part of cleaning the apartment for the occasion. He was clearly pleased with his decision."
For the wedding, Elizabeth Fonseca, ex-wife of the sculptor Gonzalo Fonseca, opened her home, just down the street from Don and Marion"s place. A judge performed the ceremony, and a jazz band graced the reception.
Herman Gollob recalls standing around, listening to the music, and joking with his wife, Barbara: "Since you and I have been married, we"ve been to three weddings. And they"ve all been Don"s!"
Harrison Starr felt Marion"s family came to the wedding worrying about "their darling daughter marrying this writer, this bohemian."
Starr"s wife, Sandra, says that "one of [Marion"s] relatives came up to me at the reception and asked, "Well, what happened to his other wives?" By this time I"d had a couple of gla.s.ses of champagne and I said, "Oh, he buried them in the back garden on Eleventh Street!" "
Don and Marion went to Barcelona for their honeymoon. "Some part of "Overnight to Many Distant Cities" came from that trip, when the lights went out in the city," Marion says.
In the story, Don writes, "In Barcelona the lights went out. At dinner. Candles were produced and the shiny langoustines placed before us. Why do I love Barcelona above most other cities? Because Barcelona and I share a pa.s.sion for walking? I was happy there? You were with me? We were celebrating my hundredth marriage? I"ll stand on that."
As he moved toward remarriage, Don had remained in touch with each of his exes. Birgit phoned him regularly to talk about Anne or Kierkegaard or some difficulty she couldn"t solve. Marilyn says, "Don got back in contact with me. Gallimard had published some French translations of his work, and he suspected that the translations were not good at all. He wrote to ask if I"d take a look and give him my opinion. He was entirely correct. There were enormous bloopers, so bad they obscured the meaning of the stories. He asked me if I"d be willing to vet any new translation, and I said sure."
In the late 1970s, Gallimard agreed to translate City Life City Life and and Sadness Sadness.With his advance, Don wanted to pay Marilyn to scour the French texts. The publisher and their their translator were not happy with the arrangement. "If it"s any consolation to the author, though Gallimard"s sales are pretty awful, I do find French publishers and writers talking about Barthelme with admiration," a foreign rights agent wrote to Maggie Curran, a young agent who worked with Lynn Nesbit on Don"s behalf. Don was translator were not happy with the arrangement. "If it"s any consolation to the author, though Gallimard"s sales are pretty awful, I do find French publishers and writers talking about Barthelme with admiration," a foreign rights agent wrote to Maggie Curran, a young agent who worked with Lynn Nesbit on Don"s behalf. Don was not not consoled, but the publisher was so offended by his insistence that his "friend" vet the ma.n.u.scripts, Maggie Curran backed off, and Marilyn never saw the drafts. consoled, but the publisher was so offended by his insistence that his "friend" vet the ma.n.u.scripts, Maggie Curran backed off, and Marilyn never saw the drafts.
"I did see Don again, in France-I can"t put an exact date on it," Marilyn says. "I was in Paris and he"d been to Denmark to see his daughter. We had a very nice lunch in Paris. We talked about this and that, nothing important.
"Of course I"d read him. I thought it was interesting work. I was on a bus in Paris one day, and a friend of mine started telling me that she was reading this great new writer. When she"d finished, I said, "Yes, he was my first husband." I"d been waiting my whole life to say that."
In "The Leap," one of his new dialogue stories, Don made reference to a "wedding day" and wrote, "Today we make the leap to faith." Ruefully, Helen reflected that, at one point in the piece, Don appeared to evoke earlier, failed relationships: "..."the worst torture [is] knowing it could have been otherwise, had we shaped up," " he wrote.
Marion felt at ease with Don"s old friends, and together she and Don socialized comfortably with a number of people: Roger Angell and his wife, Carol; Saul Steinberg; Richard Sennett and his first wife, Caroline, who worked for The New York Times; The New York Times; Elizabeth Fonseca. "Even though Elaine de Kooning had quit drinking, [we always looked forward to] meetings with her," Marion recalls. "The meetings were never awkward. Elaine was so full of stories, humor, and sparkle. She had various teaching gigs outside of New York City, but we always caught up with her when she returned. [One day] she took us to visit Willem in his studio in the Springs. [She was] trying to save [him] from booze...she felt [he] was beginning to lose his mind from his constant drinking." Elizabeth Fonseca. "Even though Elaine de Kooning had quit drinking, [we always looked forward to] meetings with her," Marion recalls. "The meetings were never awkward. Elaine was so full of stories, humor, and sparkle. She had various teaching gigs outside of New York City, but we always caught up with her when she returned. [One day] she took us to visit Willem in his studio in the Springs. [She was] trying to save [him] from booze...she felt [he] was beginning to lose his mind from his constant drinking."
On another occasion, Marion and Don spent a weekend with Roger and Carol Angell in Blue Hill, Maine. While there, they visited Katharine and E. B. White. It was a "very special" day, Marion says. "Mrs. White served us tea and wore a beautiful brooch. Visible in the background were the sites of Charlotte"s Web Charlotte"s Web and some of White"s essays." It was important to Don to keep his friends close. and some of White"s essays." It was important to Don to keep his friends close.
On July 11, 1978, Harold Rosenberg died of a stroke. Two days later, Tom Hess suffered a fatal heart attack. Like figures swept from a game board, Don"s mentors, the men who had brought him to New York, were gone.
"I will think about him for the rest of my life," Don said at Hess"s memorial service. "He was amazingly generous in all sorts of ways. He helped more people, and more imaginatively, than anyone I"ve ever known.
A year later, Don would be asked to speak at another memorial service, this one for his old editor, Henry Robbins. Robbins, fifty-one, had died of a heart attack in the Fourteenth Street subway station on his way to work.
The service was held on August 3, 1979, in an auditorium of the Society for Ethical Culture at Sixty-fourth Street and Central Park West. "I think people were always happy to see Henry, to be with him," Don told friends and mourners. "There was a gaiety about him that was consistent, that never seemed to tire." Don had lunched with him just a week before, he said, "at a place on Third Avenue called Entre Nous, which was not quite that. We lunched well into the early afternoon and could have lunched on serenely until suppertime, had we not been responsible citizens of the republic of letters. Henry was delighted...by the intellectual freedom which distinguished the life he had chosen."
To Don, Robbins had been "an exemplary figure-very much what an editor and publisher should be," and there were d.a.m.ned few like him now-few who abjured easy choices, easy money, who remained "devoted to good work" for the "permanent enrichment of our literary life." "He was a rare man," Don said, "and he will be sorely missed."
"I"ve been to more than my share [of funerals] in the last two years," Don told J. D. O"Hara in 1981. "[You] don"t go to a funeral...without ambiguous feelings. I certainly wish that all the people I have been to funerals for...were back here, so [I] could go to lunch with them and keep on with [our] life as we have always lived it. At the same time you notice that this funeral...is a social occasion of a certain kind, and it is being well or ill managed."
The loss of friends was bad enough. But a certain style style was leaking out of life. "I went to one [funeral] in an un-airconditioned hall, and I was sweating like a pig, and so was everybody else, and it was horribly uncomfortable, and one could not concentrate on the business at hand, which was celebrating a dear friend. And I went to another where we were looking around, saying ah, here"s so-and-so, he showed up, well, son of a b.i.t.c.h, he was leaking out of life. "I went to one [funeral] in an un-airconditioned hall, and I was sweating like a pig, and so was everybody else, and it was horribly uncomfortable, and one could not concentrate on the business at hand, which was celebrating a dear friend. And I went to another where we were looking around, saying ah, here"s so-and-so, he showed up, well, son of a b.i.t.c.h, he should should show up; and all these other considerations come into this moment. I mean, there are no pure moments." show up; and all these other considerations come into this moment. I mean, there are no pure moments."
Life as he had "always lived it" was gone. What little integrity remained in the publishing industry appeared to be evaporating in the desert of corporate invoices. However, Don"s induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters lifted his spirits momentarily. He and Marion were invited to a reception at Ralph Ellison"s house before the ceremony. Ellison and his wife were "very avuncular and welcoming," Marion recalls, though at the awards event, Ellison, the master of ceremonies, rambled, ad-libbed his introductions of new members, and did not seem to know who any of them were. It was in this shifting, unpredictable literary climate that Don released his sixth story collection, his tenth book overall, and the last volume he would publish with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Great Days Great Days.
The book offered sixteen stories, seven of which were dialogues-"possibility-haunted colloquies," the dust jacket called them, "stripped of everything save voices....Extravagant, profane, and comic, the dialogues are a considerable achievement, testing the possibilities of form and extending our engagement with the world." Don dedicated the book to Thomas Hess.
The dialogues furthered Don"s attempts to express the inexpressible-longings and intimations beyond words. In the past, he had employed metaphors ("The Balloon"), myths (The Dead Father) and traditional characterization ("110 West Sixty-First Street") to move beyond silence; now, he let rhythm, tone, and counterpoint carry the day. The speakers of the dialogues know the specifics of their lives; the reader does not. We can only eavesdrop; the background remains impenetrable to us, and our attention keeps bobbing toward the surface. ("The periphery is [actually] a way of rendering the core experience," Don told J. D. O"Hara.) "They"re Beckett-y," O"Hara said of the stories. "Are they Beckett-y?"
"Certainly they couldn"t exist without the example of Beckett"s plays," Don replied. "But I have other fish to fry. The dialogues in Great Days Great Days are less abstract than those between the two women in are less abstract than those between the two women in The Dead Father The Dead Father, which aren"t particularly reminiscent of Beckett and preceded them. There"s an urge toward abstraction that"s very seductive....I"m talking about a pointillist technique, where what you get is not adjacent dots of yellow and blue which optically merge to give you green but merged meanings, whether from words placed side by side in a seemingly arbitrary way or phrases similarly arrayed...."
In a pa.s.sage later cut from the Paris Review Paris Review interview-apparently because he couldn"t think the argument through well enough-Don noted John Ashbery"s influence on the dialogues. "There is some sense in which John Ashbery is central to writing at this time, and I couldn"t tell you...There"s a line that goes from Wallace Stevens to Ashbery...Ashbery is onto something that I"m quite curious about. If I can figure out why Ashbery is so important..." interview-apparently because he couldn"t think the argument through well enough-Don noted John Ashbery"s influence on the dialogues. "There is some sense in which John Ashbery is central to writing at this time, and I couldn"t tell you...There"s a line that goes from Wallace Stevens to Ashbery...Ashbery is onto something that I"m quite curious about. If I can figure out why Ashbery is so important..."
Three Poems, Ashbery"s most recent book, was composed of abstract prose, non sequiturs with little concrete imagery, apparently ill.u.s.trating the back-and-forth of a mind at war with itself.
In Great Days Great Days, as in Don"s earlier books, the "double-minded" characters recall Kierkegaard"s th.o.r.n.y texts. "The Leap" makes explicit reference to Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, in which Kierkegaard calls "doublemindedness" an "infantile...fear of punishment" in one who can"t tell if his father is a "loving" or "bad man": Don"s old subject, done up in a new style.
In addition to Beckett"s plays, Don"s dialogues could also be usefully compared to Willem de Kooning"s Woman Woman paintings, in which there is just an intimation of a figure nearly lost beneath the texture of the brush strokes. In "Great Days" and other stories, Don gives us the barest whisper of characters beneath a busy surface of words: paintings, in which there is just an intimation of a figure nearly lost beneath the texture of the brush strokes. In "Great Days" and other stories, Don gives us the barest whisper of characters beneath a busy surface of words: -Featherings of ease and bliss.-I was preparing myself. Getting ready for the great day.-Icy day with salt on all the sidewalks.-Sketching att.i.tudes and forming pretty speeches.-Pitching pennies at a line sc.r.a.ped in the dust.-Doing and redoing my l.u.s.trous abundant hair.
Aging, loss, and friendship-its warmth ("Belief") and its betrayals ("Cortes and Montezuma")-inform the new stories. Old obsessions reappear: Oedipal confusions, the tyranny of conformity ("On the Steps of the Conservatory"), the limitations of the educational system ("Morning").
In "The Death of Edward Lear," dying is seen as a social occasion, a stylized event. Don appeared to be thinking of the funerals he had recently attended. But "Lear" was an older piece; he had almost included it in Amateurs Amateurs.In fact, the idea for "Lear" may have come from Susan Sontag"s "farewell" parties in the mid-1970s, when she feared she was dying of cancer. She invited friends to her place to say good-bye to her in the midst of gaiety and planned performances.
On balance, the reviews were highly respectful; for now, the Barthelme backlash had receded. Like him or not, Don was a major artist, reviewers said. He had to be dealt with, and seriously.
"Literary history shows that the avant-garde of one period is either the norm a few decades later, the way four-letter words are now the norm, or else the highly original writer, his imitators fallen away, is left in the isolation of his special gift-standing, one might say, in the altogether. This sixth collection is bare Barthelme at his best, quite inimitable, with a new kind of calm confidence, a new depth of subject," Diane Johnson wrote in The New York Times Book Review The New York Times Book Review. In her opinion, the dialogue stories reflected a "somber mood in Barthelme"; his eye is "on Great Subjects (fear, faith, hope, s.e.xual contention)." The "old-fashioned reader, casually reading for profit and pleasure, will find [contemporary] parables," Johnson said.
Writing in The Sat.u.r.day Review The Sat.u.r.day Review, Denis Donoghue said that Don"s "stories are brief for the same reason that...sonnets have 14 lines, because that is enough." His "sentences...are so much more beautiful than G.o.d"s version [of the world] that we...repudiate the latter as a mere vulgate of experience, a first shot, at best a near-miss."
The Nation"s reviewer, James Rawley, was struck by the collection"s "muted...melancholy." He said, "Barthelme has liberated himself, for good or for ill, from mere funniness," and added, "[It] is the most haunting book anyone ever chuckled over."
Newsweek"s Peter Prescott agreed. He considered Don "one of our best and most adventurous writers." If none of the stories in Great Days Great Days "shows him wholly at his best," that is because "[m]ore than most writers, Barthelme is willing to make difficulties for himself, discarding the fiction writer"s traditional resources to invent new forms with which to mirror our complacency, our discontent." Because the dialogues "are so ambitious," they "are not all successful." They push "writing to the limit of comprehensibility." It "may be all we can ask" that "shows him wholly at his best," that is because "[m]ore than most writers, Barthelme is willing to make difficulties for himself, discarding the fiction writer"s traditional resources to invent new forms with which to mirror our complacency, our discontent." Because the dialogues "are so ambitious," they "are not all successful." They push "writing to the limit of comprehensibility." It "may be all we can ask" that some some of Don"s pieces of Don"s pieces do do work. "It is in the nature of the way he writes that his pieces...can be no better than the invention, the controlling metaphor, that he chooses for each," Prescott said, adding, "If his inventions are sometimes slight, it doesn"t matter much, for the least of Barthelme"s stories must make us smile, and over the years he has a.s.sembled an impressive body of work." work. "It is in the nature of the way he writes that his pieces...can be no better than the invention, the controlling metaphor, that he chooses for each," Prescott said, adding, "If his inventions are sometimes slight, it doesn"t matter much, for the least of Barthelme"s stories must make us smile, and over the years he has a.s.sembled an impressive body of work."
Were the great days over? In a crepuscular mood, Don imagined growing old in New York City. "I"ll probably hole up in the Gramercy Park Hotel the way [S. J.] Perelman did...a very nice hotel..." he mused. "I think Perelman"s solution is an admirable one. It"s very pretty over there, by the Gramercy Park Hotel. And you can still hear the garbage trucks in the morning."
But what to write about, now that the life he had always lived seemed imperiled? Marion"s freelance work offered a subject or two. While researching a piece on Mexico, she brought home Bernal Diaz del Castillo"s book on the conquest. Don picked it up, and so was born "Cortes and Montezuma." On another occasion, Marion "acc.u.mulated all these things" about "Chinese culture, Chinese history, Chinatown etc." for a piece she was writing. "I began picking them up" and wrote "The Emperor," Don said.
Roger Angell had finally warmed to a few of the dialogues, but he still rejected many of Don"s stories, including a long piece called "The Emerald," which Don pared from an aborted novel. "I can see that the story is elegant and strongly flavored; I just wish I liked it more," Angell said.
In the fall of 1979, Pauline Kael, The New Yorker The New Yorker"s film reviewer, took a hiatus from reviewing. Angell asked Don to fill her place for six weeks. In all, he wrote seven omnibus reviews between September 10 and October 15, mostly of foreign features such as Werner Herzog"s Woyzeck Woyzeck, Paul Verhoeven"s Soldier of Orange Soldier of Orange, Francois Truffaut"s The Green Room The Green Room, and Bernardo Bertolucci"s Luna Luna.
The reviews were erudite and witty, lessons in craft and art. For instance, in one review, Don noted, "It"s possible that the idea of man-as-victim-of-society or man-as-victim-of-the-conditions-of-existence has minimum dramatic life left in it....Like the birth trauma, victimization as a given doesn"t take us very far."
Or consider this: "[S]train as we may, we still still don"t have any d.a.m.n decadence [in our art]." don"t have any d.a.m.n decadence [in our art]."
It seems that for the most part, Don didn"t enjoy watching these movies. He was happiest with the American products, even the dumb, cheesy ones like Love and Bullets Love and Bullets, a mob movie with Rod Steiger. In Don"s pleasure in Charles Bronson, who, he wrote, was "as solid as a tool-pusher on a Texas oil rig," the gleeful young reporter for the Houston Post Houston Post almost reemerged. almost reemerged.
What he thought he should should appreciate-the sophisticated selfreflexiveness of Truffaut-he found "less fun than it used to be." Instead, he responded to "detail" and "ugly knowledge." He liked learning "what things are called" in various walks of life. He especially admired Joseph Wambaugh"s appreciate-the sophisticated selfreflexiveness of Truffaut-he found "less fun than it used to be." Instead, he responded to "detail" and "ugly knowledge." He liked learning "what things are called" in various walks of life. He especially admired Joseph Wambaugh"s The Onion Field The Onion Field, which, he felt, thoroughly understood its "milieu."
During these six weeks, Don"s best few minutes at the movies occurred in the middle of a short feature by Lawrence Weiner called Altered to Suit Altered to Suit. It was screened as part of the Whitney Museum"s New American Filmmakers Series. Don wrote, "There"s a strangely pleasant moment with a man and woman looking out a window, the man"s hand caressing the woman"s (clothed) back in husbandly fashion; the moment is protracted, goes on and on, the man"s hand moves to the cleft of the b.u.t.tocks, in husbandly fashion-a good and true observation."
For nearly twenty years now, Don had lived in Manhattan, clinging to a fragile way of life during a particularly tumultuous period in American history: civil rights and antiwar marches (barricades in the streets); feminist demands; a bombed-out brownstone down the block....
Now, he watched on his TV screen as Islamic hard-liners burned U.S. flags outside the American emba.s.sy in Tehran. On November 4, 1979, militant students-protesting America"s support of the former Shah-had stormed the emba.s.sy and taken about seventy Americans hostage. The siege would last 444 days, and it would destroy Jimmy Carter"s presidency.