The Weathermen"s tactics were repugnant, but opinion polls revealed that most Americans agreed with the anarchists that the government was corrupt, particularly in its handling of the Vietnam War. Even Walter Cronkite, the "most trusted man in America," questioned the president"s war policies on the CBS Evening News.
In an environment so shaky, the city dweller must choose between "dignity and hysteria," said Ernest Trova. The choice is difficult because rage is everywhere, and it is hard not to respond with rage of one"s own. As Don wrote, in lines he later cut from "City Life," "Now [Moonbelly] will write a song which will destroy the city, which will smash the great city into eighteen miles of broken gla.s.s, six inches deep."
"I"d often hear Don typing while I was still in bed," Kirk Sale recalls. "He would work in brief spells. Then he would go out wandering the neighborhood. He would knock off work at 11:45 precisely to have a vodka and tonic, and then a lunch with another drink at least, and he would take a nap shortly after. When he woke in midafternoon he would usually put on some music. And then he would read, magazines and books, and take a turn or two around the neighborhood, and then c.o.c.ktail time would come around five, with Scotch being the usual drink as I remember, in which I would sometimes join him, and we"d just talk. Often politics-it was the sixties and seventies, after all."
Don and Birgit seldom gave parties, though Don "came to our dinner parties often enough with wine or Scotch, and he"d be finished, and I mean that near literally, by nine," Sale says. "Oftentimes at one of our parties he would just get up in the middle of dinner or a conversation and say he was going to bed and off he went, drunk but decorous enough, and knowing he shouldn"t stay any longer."
Don once told Sale that "morning was the only time for s.e.x-but that"s because he would be too drunk at night."
Usually, in his afternoon walks around the neighborhood, Don ran into Grace Paley. He never failed to push her to write more stories. She had recently left her husband, and was now spending most of her time with Bob Nichols. Her life was chaotic, but what really kept her hopping was politics. She told Don the literary world was male-dominated and narcissistic, and that she intended to keep her distance from it.
What does that have to do with the fact that you"re not writing? Don asked her. Grace just laughed, smacked her gum, and shook her head.
Occasionally, Don went to gallery shows in the East Village, and he kept up with the East Village poetry scene through Kenneth Koch, who shared with him a few of the neighborhood"s "little" magazines: Trobar, f.u.c.k You, C, Poems from the Floating World, Trobar, f.u.c.k You, C, Poems from the Floating World, and and Umbra, Umbra, one of whose regular contributors, Lorenzo Thomas, would later move to Houston and become active in one of whose regular contributors, Lorenzo Thomas, would later move to Houston and become active in its its literary scene when Don returned to the city in the 1980s. literary scene when Don returned to the city in the 1980s.
Aside from Kirk and Faith Sale, the couple with whom Don and Birgit spent the most time was Harrison Starr and his wife, Sally Kempton, recent acquaintances (Don met Starr when they both tried to hail the same cab one afternoon, and wound up sharing the ride). Starr was a film producer. By the time Don met him, he had worked on a number of notable movies, including Arthur Penn"s Mickey One, Mickey One, starring Warren Beatty, and Paul Newman"s starring Warren Beatty, and Paul Newman"s Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, with Joanne Woodward. He had begun as an experimental filmmaker. In 1958, he collaborated with Maya Deren on with Joanne Woodward. He had begun as an experimental filmmaker. In 1958, he collaborated with Maya Deren on The Very Eye of Night, The Very Eye of Night, a fifteen-minute film in which ballet dancers, in photographic negative, appear to rotate in the air against a starry sky. a fifteen-minute film in which ballet dancers, in photographic negative, appear to rotate in the air against a starry sky.
Don was fascinated by Starr"s stories about Deren, about G.o.dard and Truffaut, with whom he had worked briefly, and about Michelangelo Antonioni, whose movie Zabriskie Point Zabriskie Point Starr would eventually produce. In "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel," Don wrote of a typical evening with Starr and Sally Kempton, who had made her name as a journalist: "H. and S. came for supper. Veal Scaloppine Marsala and very well done, with green noodles and salad. Buckets of vodka before and buckets of brandy after. The brandy depressed me. Some talk of the new artists" tenement being made out of an old warehouse building. H. said, "I hear it"s going to be very cla.s.sy. I hear it"s going to have white rats." " Starr would eventually produce. In "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel," Don wrote of a typical evening with Starr and Sally Kempton, who had made her name as a journalist: "H. and S. came for supper. Veal Scaloppine Marsala and very well done, with green noodles and salad. Buckets of vodka before and buckets of brandy after. The brandy depressed me. Some talk of the new artists" tenement being made out of an old warehouse building. H. said, "I hear it"s going to be very cla.s.sy. I hear it"s going to have white rats." "
Weekends were mostly for Anne. Don also wrote about this in "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel": Sunday. We took the baby to Central Park. At the Children"s Zoo she wanted to ride a baby Shetland pony which appeared to be about ten minutes old. Howled when told she could not. Then into a meadow (not a real meadow but an excuse for a meadow) for ball-throwing. I slept last night on the couch rather than in the bed. The couch is harder and when I can"t sleep I need a harder surface. Dreamed that my father told me that my work was garbage. Mr. Garbage, he told me in the dream. Then, at dawn, the baby woke me again. She had taken off her nightclothes and slipped into a pillowcase. She was standing by the couch in the pillowcase, as if at the starting line of a sack race.
For a period of several months, city rage, professional expectations, growing marital difficulties, and increased drinking appear to have shattered Don"s concentration. In 1969, Angell rejected a number of stories, including pieces ent.i.tled "Behavior of the Underwriters," "Glut," and "Lying Howard." They never reappeared. For Angell, these stories only "sort of, partly" worked. Don lost confidence in a piece called "Blushes," on which he had spent a great deal of time. Eventually, parts of it wound up in "The Explanation" and "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel." It is a story about nervousness, "sad fantasies," and "dangerous" city streets.
Birgit was homesick for Denmark, Don was in debt again to The New Yorker, The New Yorker, and the pressure to be seen in publishing circles, mingling with the "right people," was intense. "I...enclose an invitation to the upcoming Paris Review party-a bargain if you feel like laying out fifty bucks to get close to George Plimpton," Angell wrote Don on May 29. and the pressure to be seen in publishing circles, mingling with the "right people," was intense. "I...enclose an invitation to the upcoming Paris Review party-a bargain if you feel like laying out fifty bucks to get close to George Plimpton," Angell wrote Don on May 29.
Domestic life continued to sp.a.w.n surprises. In "Blushes," Don wrote (in a tone that presaged the more personal turn his writing would take late in his life): "The wax is gone from the floor where the baby urinated, puddle in the shape of Florida. The baby knocks back another flagon of Mott"s Apple Juice, thirty-seven cents the quart. She"s a tube of finite length, like the mind."
On balance, Angell"s notes indicate that, despite the appearance of slippage, Don was, in fact, working furiously and producing steadily; if the pieces were unsuccessful, that was because they were attempting to break through to something new. Don pushed himself harder than ever. This was evident in his revisions of "City Life" and in the multiple drafts of "The Falling Dog."
The version of "The Falling Dog" that appeared in The New Yorker The New Yorker begins with a series of contemplations: begins with a series of contemplations: gay dogs fallingsense in which you would say of a thingit"s a dog, as you would say, it"s a lemonrain of dogs like rain of frogsor shower of objects dropped to confuse enemy radar Then the narrator sets the scene: "Well, it was a standoff. I was on the concrete. [The dog] was standing there." This is followed by further meditations, this time on various media available to the artist (Plexiglas, aluminum). Finally the reader learns what has happened: "Yes, a dog jumped on me out of a high window." The narrator, a sculptor, is flooded with thoughts of how to "do" the "falling dog."
As it appeared two years later in City Life, City Life, the story begins with the explanation ("a dog jumped on me") followed by the "gay dogs" list. The revision provides an immediate context for the reader but loses the dramatic impact of the earlier beginning. In any case, the lists keep the reader offkilter even in the later version; Don"s changes don"t make the story any easier to enter. If clarification was his goal, the simplest solution would have been a few extra lines of exposition. Instead, Don rearranged blocks of words, but not in aid of logic or linearity. It"s as though the paragraphs were sculptural sc.r.a.ps that Don kept rearranging to see which combination of s.p.a.ce, depth, and perspective cast the greatest sparks. the story begins with the explanation ("a dog jumped on me") followed by the "gay dogs" list. The revision provides an immediate context for the reader but loses the dramatic impact of the earlier beginning. In any case, the lists keep the reader offkilter even in the later version; Don"s changes don"t make the story any easier to enter. If clarification was his goal, the simplest solution would have been a few extra lines of exposition. Instead, Don rearranged blocks of words, but not in aid of logic or linearity. It"s as though the paragraphs were sculptural sc.r.a.ps that Don kept rearranging to see which combination of s.p.a.ce, depth, and perspective cast the greatest sparks.
As in all of his stories about about art, Don stressed that an artist begins not in some rarefied theoretical realm but in the world itself. The sculptor smuggles the world into his studio in the form of the dog. "The world enters [our] work as it enters our ordinary lives," Don once said, "not as world-view or system but in sharp particularity." art, Don stressed that an artist begins not in some rarefied theoretical realm but in the world itself. The sculptor smuggles the world into his studio in the form of the dog. "The world enters [our] work as it enters our ordinary lives," Don once said, "not as world-view or system but in sharp particularity."
His struggles early in 1969, followed by an astonishing period of productivity, suggest the mental preparation he was making in order to create richer work. His domestic woes and the distractions of parenting and drinking were factors in his struggles, but most of all he was deepening his emotional and intellectual knowledge.
He had immersed himself in Anton Ehrenzweig"s The Hidden Order of Art, The Hidden Order of Art, which he claimed was the most enlightening book he had ever found about creativity. Ehrenzweig was a psychologist and arts educator from Vienna. Like Freud, he believed that Oedipal tensions form the basis of Western civilization"s social structures. The artist uncovers the hidden motivations behind our public behaviors, and finds symbols for them by delving into the "dynamic instability" of the unconscious mind. which he claimed was the most enlightening book he had ever found about creativity. Ehrenzweig was a psychologist and arts educator from Vienna. Like Freud, he believed that Oedipal tensions form the basis of Western civilization"s social structures. The artist uncovers the hidden motivations behind our public behaviors, and finds symbols for them by delving into the "dynamic instability" of the unconscious mind.
Don"s study of The Hidden Order of Art, The Hidden Order of Art, and his reacquaintance with Freud in the late 1960s, gave him firm control of his materials and his central themes. (It would be too reductive to read all of Don"s early stories as Oedipal tales or to see the characters as dreamlike displacements enacting Freud"s view of the central family drama, but this approach helps illuminate some of the emotional resonance in "Me and Miss Mandible," "Florence Green Is 81," "Hiding Man," "The Dolt," "The President," "Game," and many others.) and his reacquaintance with Freud in the late 1960s, gave him firm control of his materials and his central themes. (It would be too reductive to read all of Don"s early stories as Oedipal tales or to see the characters as dreamlike displacements enacting Freud"s view of the central family drama, but this approach helps illuminate some of the emotional resonance in "Me and Miss Mandible," "Florence Green Is 81," "Hiding Man," "The Dolt," "The President," "Game," and many others.) According to Ehrenzweig, in pa.s.sages Don pondered intensely, the creator must surrender to the vast, "oceanic" depths of the prerational mind where distinctions weaken, objects and feelings blur-the way opposites frequently displace one another in dreams-and thereby forge "cooperation between several mental levels." The creative thinker links previously disconnected matrices. And these "matrices...function according to their different codes."
The rhythm of creativity is the rhythm of labor and birth-expansion and contraction-leading to a creative rebirth rebirth. The mother is the source of life; she "unites in her...image both male and female." In creative work, the "father figure"-the maker of rules-"recedes behind the mother," a reprieve, for the artist, from aggression and rigidity. The artist returns to a pre-Oedipal state, when the mother"s body was the world. Eventually, the artist "merges with the mother and incorporates her generative powers." The "boundary between the internal and the external world gives way."
Reading Ehrenzweig sent Don back to Freud"s "Dostoevsky and Parricide" (1928), in which Freud discussed the self-destructive leanings of an artist who seeks the "oceanic" state. In longing to be "under the control of his unconscious," the artist tries to reduce himself to "brief periods of absence." Freud speculated that Dostoevsky"s epilepsy might have been induced by this desire. Other artists reach absence by drunkenness or various other forms of addiction.
Freud then upped the ante and suggested that Dostoevsky"s guilt feelings toward his father lay behind everything he wrote. The old fellow was murdered when Dostoevsky was eighteen; though the young man had nothing to do with it, the killing fulfilled his secret wish that his father be removed from the world. Forever afterward, he felt blameworthy. Dostoevsky"s "death-like seizures" became more than just "absences"; they signified "an identification with a dead person, either with someone who is really dead or with someone who is still alive and whom the subject wishes dead" (Freud noted that a "moment of supreme bliss" often precedes an epileptic"s blackout).
A "great need for punishment develops in the ego" of a person who feels such rage toward the father, Freud stated. Besides seizures and inebriation, gambling (another of Dostoevsky"s afflictions) often manifests as a form of self-punishment-"guilt" taking "tangible shape as a burden of debt."
"[F]ate is, in the last resort, only a...father-projection," said Freud.
In the context of these remarks, Don must have wondered about his childhood "fits" and his drinking. "Don would drink himself into some state of inebriation each night," says Karen Kennerly, one of his girlfriends in the early 1970s. "Once he called me from Houston. He was staying in his father"s home. He said he"d been drinking and he pa.s.sed out on his father"s drafting board, and had thrown up on it."
After "Dostoevsky and Parricide," Don reread Freud"s The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, "Errors," "Errors," Totem and Taboo, Totem and Taboo, and Karl Abraham"s gloss on Freud"s Oedipal theories, "Father-Murder and Father-Rescue in the Fantasies of Neurotics" (1922). Shortly thereafter, he wrote a story called "Views of My Father Weeping," in which the narrator"s father is run over by an aristocrat"s carriage when the coachman whips his horses into a frenzy. Afterward, after some hesitation, the son tracks down the coachman for reasons not entirely clear, even to himself. and Karl Abraham"s gloss on Freud"s Oedipal theories, "Father-Murder and Father-Rescue in the Fantasies of Neurotics" (1922). Shortly thereafter, he wrote a story called "Views of My Father Weeping," in which the narrator"s father is run over by an aristocrat"s carriage when the coachman whips his horses into a frenzy. Afterward, after some hesitation, the son tracks down the coachman for reasons not entirely clear, even to himself.
The narrative style recalls Dostoevsky"s novels, and a book by his literary descendant, Venyamin Kaverin, The Unknown Artist The Unknown Artist (1931), in which a young man attempts to find his place in society following the Russian Revolution. (1931), in which a young man attempts to find his place in society following the Russian Revolution.
In Don"s story, the search for the coachman is interrupted by present-tense "views" of the narrator"s father as he sits in bed weeping, plays with a ball of knitting or a water pistol, smudges the tops of cupcakes, or indulges in other childlike acts. "Why do I desire with all my heart that this man, my father, cease what he is doing, which is so painful to me?" the narrator asks himself. "Is it only that my position is a familiar one? That I remember, before, desiring with all my heart that this man, my father, cease what he is doing?"
As the critic Michael Zeitlin pointed out, the carriage scene is a replay of Oedipus Rex: Oedipus Rex: Oedipus encounters his father"s carriage on a road, and winds up attacking and killing the old man. Furthermore, Don"s scene is an echo of Abraham"s "Father-Murder" essay. Abraham recounts a dream of one of his patients, similar in structure to Oedipus"s run-in with Laius. "There can be no doubt that a birth fantasy is contained in the myth" and in the dream, says Abraham. The son must get "his father out of the way in order to be born." The street is the birth ca.n.a.l. The s.e.xual symbolism of horses is well known, and the carriage is a womb symbol: Oedipus"s fight with his father is a "contest about the maternal genitals." Oedipus encounters his father"s carriage on a road, and winds up attacking and killing the old man. Furthermore, Don"s scene is an echo of Abraham"s "Father-Murder" essay. Abraham recounts a dream of one of his patients, similar in structure to Oedipus"s run-in with Laius. "There can be no doubt that a birth fantasy is contained in the myth" and in the dream, says Abraham. The son must get "his father out of the way in order to be born." The street is the birth ca.n.a.l. The s.e.xual symbolism of horses is well known, and the carriage is a womb symbol: Oedipus"s fight with his father is a "contest about the maternal genitals."
In "Views of My Father Weeping," Don reversed the elements of the myth: Oedipus becomes the father, approaching the carriage, and he is killed by an aristocrat"s servant (the aristocrat being another father figure.) Don"s narrator is merely an observer after the fact. Or is he? In his essay on Dostoevsky, Freud said, "It is a matter of indifference who actually committed the crime; psychology is only concerned to know who desired it emotionally and who welcomed it when it was done." Don"s reversals indicate an elaborate screening by the son of a wish so intense, he keeps disguising and displacing it: the desire for his father"s demise.
At the scene of the crime, the son leans over his father"s body. Blood from the old man"s mouth stains the collar of his coat. Later, when the narrator learns the ident.i.ty of the coachman, Lars Bang, he notes that the name was "not unlike my own name."
Indeed, in early drafts of the story, Don called the coachman Lars Bo. Don"s nickname, as a boy, was Bo.
In the story, the son"s guilt is so great, he is haunted by views of his father weeping, regressing into childhood. The present-tense verbs give them greater immediacy than the rest of the story. Grammatically, the weeping episodes are endless and halt all psychic progress. As Zeitlin says, "[T]he son kills the father in fantasy but is left to be ravaged forevermore by guilty dreams-or views-of weeping and pathetic fathers (the last word of the story is "etc."). After all, who is this dead and weeping father but the father-in-the-son."
Don"s version of the myth is "darker even than Sophocles"," says Zeitlin. Don"s son is "denied his oedipal victory, dying the thousand deaths of remorse before he gets anywhere close to [his mother] or to solving the mystery of the roots of his own existence."
To date, "Views of My Father Weeping" was Don"s most intricate story about fathers and sons, and it helped elucidate some of his earlier work. Its explicit Freudian subtexts (always handled playfully) reminded readers that Don had flirted with Freud before.
In an essay, well known to Don, called "A Special Type of Object Choice Made by Men," Freud wrote, "All [the son"s] instincts, those of tenderness, grat.i.tude, l.u.s.tfulness, defiance and independence, find satisfaction in the single wish to be his own father." Freud continued: It"s as though the boy"s defiance were to make him say, "I want nothing from my father; I will give him back all I have cost him." He then forms the phantasy of rescuing his father from danger and saving his life; in this way he puts his account square with him. This phantasy is commonly enough displaced on to the emperor, king or some other great man; after being thus distorted it becomes admissible to consciousness, and may even be made use of by creative writers.
These observations place the ending of "Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning" in a fresh context. As it turns out, the story is not only a meditation on RFK, politics, and celebrity but also-like many of Don"s other early stories-a powerful Oedipal fantasy.
After floundering a bit, trying to discover the right forms for his growing ambitions, Don would produce his strongest collection yet, City Life City Life. The stories showed a remarkable range and diversity of shapes, yet they were united in their conscious examination of Oedipal rage. If "The Phantom of the Opera"s Friend" was a gentle homage to Gaston Leroux"s tale-and to the ability of slight content to transform itself into various media (books, musicals, movies)-it was also an allegory of a son"s attempts to please an impossible father. If "On Angels" was an amusing literal take on the notion that "G.o.d is dead," it was also a meditation on the emptiness that attends the realization of an unspeakable wish.
On May 24, 1969, The New Yorker The New Yorker published "At the Tolstoy Museum," Don"s story of an imaginary museum dedicated to the life and works of Leo Tolstoy. "The holdings of the Tolstoy Museum consist princ.i.p.ally of some thirty thousand pictures of Count Leo Tolstoy," the narrator says. "More than any other museum, the Tolstoy Museum induces weeping. Even the bare t.i.tle of a Tolstoy work, with its burden of love, can induce weeping-for example, the article t.i.tled, "Who Should Teach Whom to Write, We the Peasant Children or the Peasant Children Us?" " published "At the Tolstoy Museum," Don"s story of an imaginary museum dedicated to the life and works of Leo Tolstoy. "The holdings of the Tolstoy Museum consist princ.i.p.ally of some thirty thousand pictures of Count Leo Tolstoy," the narrator says. "More than any other museum, the Tolstoy Museum induces weeping. Even the bare t.i.tle of a Tolstoy work, with its burden of love, can induce weeping-for example, the article t.i.tled, "Who Should Teach Whom to Write, We the Peasant Children or the Peasant Children Us?" "
The text is accompanied by visual collages. In one, the Great Master"s head (one of the museum"s exhibits) overwhelms a small Napoleonic figure. A sketch investigating architectural perspective ill.u.s.trates "The Anna-Vronsky Pavilion"; in the foreground, a top-hatted man holds a swooning woman.
With its deliberately flat prose, the story is at once a parody and a tribute, a denial of the literary past and a longing to return to it. It is another examination by a son of his ambivalent feelings toward the world of his father.
The story"s appearance prompted a family in Holly Hill, Florida, to write to the magazine to learn the location of the Tolstoy Museum. Roger Angell replied that while "there is a Tolstoy Museum somewhere in Russia," the one that Mr. Barthelme wrote about "exists only in Mr. Barthelme"s marvelous imagination. I hope this does not come as too much of a shock to you."
A more sobering letter arrived on June 9. Countess Alexandra L. Tolstoy, the writer"s daughter, wrote to protest "Donald Barthelme"s absurd article." She asked, "What is the aim of such an article? To make people laugh?...How funny! Ha, ha, ha!"
She concluded: "I wish the so-called writers of now-a-days would have more respect to the memory of my father, Leo Tolstoy, and leave him in peace, and would have a little consideration to me as his daughter while I am still alive." To set the magazine straight, she enclosed a hagiographic brochure she had composed called "The Real Tolstoy."
On June 25, Angell responded: "I can a.s.sure you that neither [the author] nor we wished to show the slightest disrespect for [your father] or his immense works.... I have shown your letter to Mr. Barthelme and he asks me to apologize deeply for any distress he may have inadvertently caused you."
A difficult, elliptical writer appearing regularly in a popular magazine; a rebellious son with a strong sense of citizenship; a modern father constructing an "old Victrola" for his daughter and a harpsichord for his wife; an avant-gardist in the "hip" sixties reading musty old Freud: Don"s paradoxes and uniqueness among his literary contemporaries couldn"t be more p.r.o.nounced.
In an article in the second issue of Location, Location, Willem de Kooning said he "reinvent[ed] the harpsichord" in his work. Of this comment, Thomas Hess noted, "One of the most remarkable accomplishments of New York painting has been its simultaneous renewal and defiance of the past. With its radical a.s.sumption that anything can become art and that the artist can do anything, the painters proceeded to drag past art up into the present." For de Kooning, the Willem de Kooning said he "reinvent[ed] the harpsichord" in his work. Of this comment, Thomas Hess noted, "One of the most remarkable accomplishments of New York painting has been its simultaneous renewal and defiance of the past. With its radical a.s.sumption that anything can become art and that the artist can do anything, the painters proceeded to drag past art up into the present." For de Kooning, the new new had been achieved by the "daring step of canceling out the whole idea of an avant-garde...." had been achieved by the "daring step of canceling out the whole idea of an avant-garde...."
Don"s Oedipal battles-and his increasingly conscious use of them in his fiction-put him in sync with de Kooning, the king, the aristocrat. It was not just a matter of being attracted to the old and and the new, to the world of our fathers the new, to the world of our fathers and and the plains of possibility, but of being unable to escape either one of them. the plains of possibility, but of being unable to escape either one of them.
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CITY LIFE (II).
Day to day, Birgit drifted in an unreachable world, leaving Don with most of the child care. She wanted to return to Denmark, and hinted that suicide was a possibility if she didn"t get her way. Don"s picture of perfect romance had paled considerably, along with much of his optimism about art"s revolutionary capacities.
"At the Tolstoy Museum we sat and wept," he had written, longing for the grandeur of the past. "The entire building, viewed from the street, suggests that it is about to fall on you. This the architects refer to as Tolstoy"s moral authority."
His irony notwithstanding, Don believed with more conviction now that he had not been born into a moral world. Such a world was lost to him; he inhabited a fallen sphere. In Houston stood the mirror opposite of the Tolstoy Museum, in a sleepy residential neighborhood near Don"s old living quarters. The Hyde Park Miniature Museum displayed car parts, arrowheads, shoe b.u.t.tons, and toiletpaper statues. On his visits back home, whenever Don stumbled upon this this collection, he saw it as the measure of his world-the only world available to him. collection, he saw it as the measure of his world-the only world available to him.
A sign in the window of the Hyde Park Miniature Museum said PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THIS IS A PRIVATE MUSEUM AND WE CANNOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE EXHIBITS.
Don published City Life City Life in 1970. At the book"s center is a pair of complementary stories, "The Explanation" and "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel," featuring dialogues between "Q" and "A." in 1970. At the book"s center is a pair of complementary stories, "The Explanation" and "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel," featuring dialogues between "Q" and "A."
Q"s qualities peg him as Apollonian, a voice of authority invested in order and machinery. A is Dionysian, drawn to dreaming and the arts. Occasionally, Q and A appear to be projections of the same consciousness. At intervals, they switch personalities. Each has a daughter.
"The Explanation" begins with an image of a big black square. The image is repeated three times in the story, and shows up again in "Kierkegaard." Initially, Q refers to the square as a machine. He asks A, "Do you believe that this machine could be helpful in changing the government?" Later, a similar square represents a "picture" of Q"s daughter.
According to the critic Jerome Klinkowitz, a "box" inserted into a text is "a common journalistic device used at the stage of laying out a page when the story is already typeset but the accompanying photographs are not yet available." The black square is a place holder for any number of ill.u.s.trations.
Additionally, the Bauhaus painter Josef Albers did a well-known Homage to the Square Homage to the Square series, which helped pioneer geometric painting. Mark Rothko"s final "spiritual" paintings, designed for a Houston museum, were hard-edged and dark. The artist Tony Smith engaged in a series of black box sculptures. series, which helped pioneer geometric painting. Mark Rothko"s final "spiritual" paintings, designed for a Houston museum, were hard-edged and dark. The artist Tony Smith engaged in a series of black box sculptures.
Perhaps most famously, Kasemir Malevich did a series of all-black paintings in 1913; their notoriety raised the twentieth century"s central aesthetic questions: What is is a work of art? What do we think of a world in which something like this is a work of art? What do we think of a world in which something like this is seen seen as a work of art? These questions are germane to "The Explanation" and to "Kierkegaard." Malevich said his black squares were "pure feeling," and that "pure feeling" was as a work of art? These questions are germane to "The Explanation" and to "Kierkegaard." Malevich said his black squares were "pure feeling," and that "pure feeling" was the the central artistic reality. central artistic reality.
In "The Explanation," Q and A discuss whether "purity" is "quantifiable." They agree it is not. It can only be represented abstractly. Each character reads into the black squares whatever most engages him at the moment.
Moreover, the "machinery" of "pure feeling" is bound up with the mechanisms of projection and repression. In Freudian fashion, Q and A project att.i.tudes and desires onto each other to see how an "other" judges them. Between them, Q and A"s dialogue unearths several buried fantasies. As they test each other, they debate art and machinery"s effects on the soul. (In his now-famous essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"-which Don referenced more than once in his fiction-Walter Benjamin argued that technology"s ability to ma.s.s-produce words and images had compromised art. It is indistinguishable, now, from mechanics. It is soulless and impure.) Throughout the stories, the repeating square simultaneously ill.u.s.trates and mocks Q and A"s debate.
In sum, the stories" dialectics reflect the aesthetic, philosophical, and psychological issues that dominated mid-twentieth-century city life-or Don"s experience of it. In 1963, the year he moved to New York, the Jewish Museum held an important show, "Black and White," featuring paintings in the "pure" spirit of Malevich by Pollock, de Kooning, Newman, Hofmann, Kline, Rauschenberg, Johns, and others. Alfred Barr, of the Museum of Modern Art, said that abstract paintings were question-producing machines. He quoted John Graham, whom Don mentioned in "Eugenie Grandet": The question-and-answer format, Graham said, lay behind every true artwork.
In 1967, Michael Fried published an important essay ent.i.tled "Art and Objecthood"; in it, he attacked Harold Rosenberg without naming him. He disparaged the idea of the "anxious" object that so excited Rosenberg, Thomas Hess, and Don. In part, Fried"s essay focused on Tony Smith"s black boxes, featured a Q & A with Smith, and spoke of museumgoers" unavoidable tendency to anthropomorphize abstract art.
Together, Don"s stories formed a witty reply to Fried. "I don"t like to use anthropomorphic language in talking about these machines," Q remarks in "The Explanation" (machines, here, meaning technology and and art). Still, he insists that these mysterious objects are "brave." art). Still, he insists that these mysterious objects are "brave."
Q and A do not resolve their differences...yet, to quote Wallace Stevens, a "relation appears" between them. At one point, A, whose love of chaos has resisted Q"s ordering, a.s.sumes Q"s view. Q asks him, "Now that you"ve studied [the machine] for a bit, can you explain how it works?"
A answers, "Of course. (Explanation)"
"Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel" focuses more explicitly on verbal art. Q and A continue to spar, but here A"s mind is more divided. He discusses Kierkegaard"s attack on Friedrich Schlegel in The Concept of Irony. The Concept of Irony. In 1799, Schlegel published a novel called In 1799, Schlegel published a novel called Lucinde. Lucinde. He was a prominent literary theorist, and critics received He was a prominent literary theorist, and critics received Lucinde Lucinde as more than just a novel: It was a polemic against conservative thought. The novel was fragmented in form, a gleeful dialectic between nature and man, men and women, spirituality and s.e.xuality. as more than just a novel: It was a polemic against conservative thought. The novel was fragmented in form, a gleeful dialectic between nature and man, men and women, spirituality and s.e.xuality.
The Concept of Irony was Kierkegaard"s university dissertation in 1841. In it, he went after Schlegel"s "very obscene book." He objected to what he perceived to be Schlegel"s nihilism and his "artistic voluptuousness," which ignored "chronology," narrative "development," and other literary conventions. was Kierkegaard"s university dissertation in 1841. In it, he went after Schlegel"s "very obscene book." He objected to what he perceived to be Schlegel"s nihilism and his "artistic voluptuousness," which ignored "chronology," narrative "development," and other literary conventions.
A is torn between Kierkegaard and and Schlegel, order and disorder. He admits that his ironic frame of mind does nothing to "change" the world. "I love my irony," he says, but he concedes that it gives him only a "poor...rather unsatisfactory" pleasure. Schlegel, order and disorder. He admits that his ironic frame of mind does nothing to "change" the world. "I love my irony," he says, but he concedes that it gives him only a "poor...rather unsatisfactory" pleasure.
Eventually, Q"s "imbecile questions leading nowhere" crack A"s emotional control. Momentarily, he drops his wry armor. "He has given away his gaiety, and now has nothing," Q says as an aside to the reader.
Bitterly, A recognizes the validity of Q"s world. Yet ironies abound. As Don knew, neither Schlegel nor Kierkegaard was quite who he appeared to be. Lucinde Lucinde presented a chaotic surface; in truth, Schlegel longed for a world in which all contradictions were resolved. presented a chaotic surface; in truth, Schlegel longed for a world in which all contradictions were resolved. The Concept of Irony The Concept of Irony seemed to disparage humor, disorganization, and fragmentation; in fact, it was a model of these qualities, as Kierkegaard intended it to be a parody of academic thought. Through fierce sarcasm, seemed to disparage humor, disorganization, and fragmentation; in fact, it was a model of these qualities, as Kierkegaard intended it to be a parody of academic thought. Through fierce sarcasm, The Concept of Irony The Concept of Irony dismantles its own arguments and utterly self-destructs. dismantles its own arguments and utterly self-destructs.
Ultimately, "The Explanation" and "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel" solve none of the vexations of city life, but in their demonstration that, in Wallace Stevens"s words, "These / Two things are one"-whatever the extremes of the dialectic-they urge acceptance of life"s stunning abundance. the extremes of the dialectic-they urge acceptance of life"s stunning abundance.
Don"s black square must be considered from one more perspective. His exwife Helen had phoned to tell him she was now dating a linguist, a professor at the University of Houston named Sam Southwell. Though Don no longer desired Helen, he experienced an irrational jealousy of her new lover. Don had always dabbled in philosophy, including linguistic theory, but he feared that his failure to earn a college degree exposed him to the charge of dilettantism. Now his ex was seeing a true philosopher.
In light of all this, it seems likely that one one of the square"s referents is the cognitive language theory advanced by Noam Chomsky, a concept with which Don was familiar through Walker Percy"s essays on language. At the time, cognitive scientists regularly spoke of the human mind as a black box, and Chomsky used the box as an ill.u.s.tration of what he called a "language acquisition device"-a machinelike part of the mind busy processing words. of the square"s referents is the cognitive language theory advanced by Noam Chomsky, a concept with which Don was familiar through Walker Percy"s essays on language. At the time, cognitive scientists regularly spoke of the human mind as a black box, and Chomsky used the box as an ill.u.s.tration of what he called a "language acquisition device"-a machinelike part of the mind busy processing words.
Among the subjects Q and A examine are theories and uses of language. At several points, their dialogue falls into repet.i.tive near-nonsense that sounds like examples of syntax formation from linguistics textbooks.
Q runs a series of "error messages" past A: "improper sequence of operators," "improper use of hierarchy," "mixed mode, that one"s particularly grave." These could be computer errors, but they could also be the listings of a language acquisition device, sorting through usage. (They also define salient qualities in Don"s fiction.) As he speaks with Q, A entertains fantasies of a woman-apparently a former lover. He imagines her removing her blouse. Combined with these fantasies, the "error messages" sound a Freudian note. Errors in speech, Freud said, are openings in which repressed thoughts break through to the conscious mind.
Late in "The Explanation," A, frustrated by Q"s chilly demeanor, raises a formerly suppressed concern of his: I called her...and told her that I had dreamed about her, that she was naked in the dream, that we were making love. She didn"t wish to be dreamed about, she said-not now, not later, not ever, when would I stop. I suggested that it was something over which I had no control. She said that it had all been a long time ago and that she was married to Howard now, as I knew, and that she didn"t want...irruptions of this kind. Think of Howard, she said.
In both stories, as A"s frustration grows, A thinks of striking Q. At one point, he imagines being struck by his father. At the end of "The Explanation," the object of his fantasies, the woman removing her blouse, acquires-in A"s mind-a "bruise on her thigh." The repressed thought has finally emerged, through thickets of theorizing, arguing, displacing, fantasizing: A"s anger at his former lover.
As in "Views of My Father Weeping," Don explored, in these Q & A pieces, his deepest fears and motivations, his conscious defenses. He did not spare himself. Without being overtly autobiographical or self-indulgent, the stories were highly revealing.
"You seem emotionless," A tells Q.