One of G.o.dard"s earliest essays, "Towards a Political Cinema," written in 1950, when he was nineteen, takes Bazin"s theories a step further, and argues that cinema is part of the reality it is creating. To improve cinema, then, is to improve the world itself-a utopianism, it turns out, consistent with the doctrines of modern architecture.
Inherent in this view of filmmaking is the notion that the director is an artist, shaping the medium"s most basic elements. With this vision, G.o.dard and Truffaut celebrated Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k, and other American directors, whom most French intellectuals rejected as ba.n.a.l. The directors" brilliance lay not in the genres they plied-horror, comedy, Westerns, etc.-but in the variations they worked on conventions, often quite subtly, through camera angles, editing, and lighting. As in a jazz improvisation, the style of the pictures became a commentary on the subject, and revealed the hand of an "author."
G.o.dard and Truffaut had the lucky support of intellectual comrades, and a fertile establishment within which to develop their ideas. In Houston, Don had to educate himself with whatever was there. What was there in 1952 was the Houston Post, Houston Post, a far cry from a far cry from Cahiers du Cinema. Cahiers du Cinema. If his movie reviews were restricted to plot summaries and evaluations of actors, he was nevertheless developing an eye for the visual language of film, so that, less than a decade later, when he If his movie reviews were restricted to plot summaries and evaluations of actors, he was nevertheless developing an eye for the visual language of film, so that, less than a decade later, when he did did become aware of Truffaut and G.o.dard, he was already their aesthetic brother. become aware of Truffaut and G.o.dard, he was already their aesthetic brother.
Occasionally, in Don"s newspaper pieces, it"s possible to glimpse him straining against his editor"s strict standards. Mostly, he could only get away with prankishness-an unexpected climax to a sentence, say: The movie Painting the Clouds with Sunshine Painting the Clouds with Sunshine is "packed with color, spectacle and glamour, and is a pretty dreary business," he wrote. is "packed with color, spectacle and glamour, and is a pretty dreary business," he wrote. Take Care of My Little Girl Take Care of My Little Girl "cracks the fraternity-sorority question wide open," he quipped, "with beautiful Jeanne Crain used as a maul." It ends up "more rhinestone than brimstone." "cracks the fraternity-sorority question wide open," he quipped, "with beautiful Jeanne Crain used as a maul." It ends up "more rhinestone than brimstone."
On May 25, 1952, Don"s colleague W. D. Bedell reviewed, for the Post, Post, Charles Mills"s novel, Charles Mills"s novel, The Alexandrians. The Alexandrians. The headline ran a deeply disturbing novel of the south. The headline ran a deeply disturbing novel of the south. The Alexandrians The Alexandrians traces the rise and fall of a small Georgia town, from its settlement in 1839 to the 1930s, and doc.u.ments the decline of the plantation economy, touching along the way on the social effects of slavery and religious intolerance. In the October 10, 1952, issue of the traces the rise and fall of a small Georgia town, from its settlement in 1839 to the 1930s, and doc.u.ments the decline of the plantation economy, touching along the way on the social effects of slavery and religious intolerance. In the October 10, 1952, issue of the Cougar, Cougar, Don, still in the first flush of his marriage, offered "Chapter One" of Don, still in the first flush of his marriage, offered "Chapter One" of Amanda Feverish, Amanda Feverish, "a deeply disturbing novel of the South...[the] only fourchapter novel in the entire world." Subsequent chapters, ent.i.tled "Panic," "Visitation," and "Finale," appeared throughout the month of October. "a deeply disturbing novel of the South...[the] only fourchapter novel in the entire world." Subsequent chapters, ent.i.tled "Panic," "Visitation," and "Finale," appeared throughout the month of October.
Don began his tenure with the Cougar Cougar with a review of Speed Lamkin"s novel of the South, and now he would end it with a parody of a Southern novel...or was it a parody of Bedell"s review, or, as the style suggests, of Faulkner, the granddaddy of Southern novelists? with a review of Speed Lamkin"s novel of the South, and now he would end it with a parody of a Southern novel...or was it a parody of Bedell"s review, or, as the style suggests, of Faulkner, the granddaddy of Southern novelists?
Amanda Feverish follows the protagonist"s efforts to get a drink. She dispatches several suitors to fetch her a draught of "Old Illusion." The first, St. Clair Pitkin, a "moody, star-crossed scion of a fine old Southern family," overdoses on morphine and fails to return. The second, Pierre-Jean Louis Maurois Ennui, a "handsome if decadent French poet living on love and peach brandy in a shack in the middle of Amanda"s peach orchard," falls victim to his own home brew, which is laced with insecticide. Amanda"s disquiet grows. follows the protagonist"s efforts to get a drink. She dispatches several suitors to fetch her a draught of "Old Illusion." The first, St. Clair Pitkin, a "moody, star-crossed scion of a fine old Southern family," overdoses on morphine and fails to return. The second, Pierre-Jean Louis Maurois Ennui, a "handsome if decadent French poet living on love and peach brandy in a shack in the middle of Amanda"s peach orchard," falls victim to his own home brew, which is laced with insecticide. Amanda"s disquiet grows.
A fine pink haze, composed of gin and magnolia blossoms in equal parts, hovered over the Feverish plantation. It was dusk, the magic hour when the overpowering fragrance of the old slave quarters suffused every part of the grounds, even the south forty, where Amanda Feverish, windblown, wildeyed, sat under a juniper bush, pulling the wings off a giant, greengold dragonfly.
Finally, Erskine Scaldwell, hoping to breathe the Old South"s "wine-like if decaying atmosphere," calls on Amanda. She draws "an immense hogleg from her garter," shoots him, then herself. Old Josh, "her aged, faithful Sioux butler," is left emitting the "soft patter of tears...peeling onions in the kitchen." As Robert Murray Davis wryly noted, "Less than three months after [Amanda Feverish] was published, [Don] was drafted, but there was probably no connection."
PART TWO.
AFTER PAPA"S WAR.
10.
BASIC TRAINING.
Draftees were given one month to put their affairs in order before reporting for basic training. Don cleaned out his desk at the Post, Post, probably in the sad light of dawn after one of his nightly shifts. Naked of his things, the desktop showed its scars, the ones Don had left as well as the ones that didn"t quite date to O. Henry. Maggie decided to remain at Rice to pursue her French degree. His friends threw him a farewell party; Helen Moore sought him out to wish him luck. probably in the sad light of dawn after one of his nightly shifts. Naked of his things, the desktop showed its scars, the ones Don had left as well as the ones that didn"t quite date to O. Henry. Maggie decided to remain at Rice to pursue her French degree. His friends threw him a farewell party; Helen Moore sought him out to wish him luck.
One morning at the beginning of April 1953, Don boarded a bus to Louisiana. At a military reception center at Camp Polk, he and the other recruits were told to shuck their clothes for a medical inspection. They were each handed two cardboard tags with a letter and a number, designating their company and position. One tag stayed with the men; the other was tied to their suitcases. Eventually, the recruits were fingerprinted, fitted for shoes, given mess kits, canteens, and khaki and denim uniforms.
Don was a.s.signed to Company M, 145th Infantry Regiment, 37th Infantry Division-the "Buckeye Division," mostly composed of members of the Ohio National Guard. Camp Polk, established in 1941, covers over 198,000 acres of the Kisatchie National Forest, eight miles southwest of Leesville. During World War II, Louisiana was one of the busiest sites of domestic military training; all around Camp Polk, truckloads of soldiers pitched tents in the woods and conducted maneuvers. Kids crowded the roads near the camp, selling candy and c.o.kes to the young recruits. Gen. Mark Clark, whose name figures prominently in one of Don"s best stories, "The Indian Uprising," spent time at Camp Polk.
After the war, the camp served as a POW holding station. Eventually, it was inactivated and put on a standby basis. It came back to life in September 1950, just three months after North Korean troops moved south past the thirty-eighth parallel with the goal of uniting the Korean peninsula.
After his initial round of medical tests, Don and his fellow recruits shuffled into a dark room for the first of several film screenings-a grim parody of Don"s civilian moviegoing: short films on administering first aid, removing wounded soldiers from a battle zone, and treating frostbite. Afterward, at the rec center, Don drank weak beer and wrote postcards to his family. He made arrangements to send his civilian clothes home.
The next morning, reveille came at 5:30. The wooden barracks were drafty and cold, so it was a relief to step into the sunshine. Many young soldiers, including Don, got their first taste of domesticity in the army. They each took a turn at KP duty, twelve uninterrupted hours of gouging the eyes out of potatoes and taking out the trash. The men worked, ate, slept, and marched in alphabetical order.
Don was a.s.signed a rifle, a .03, weighing about nine pounds. He was told to memorize its serial number and to treat it as part of his body. Rifle drills were aimed at getting the men comfortable with their weapons, shifting the rifles from shoulder to shoulder, lifting them into the air, placing their b.u.t.ts on the ground, all in precise order. a.s.sembly, disa.s.sembly.
The cry of "Let"s go, let"s go!" started each day as a bugle brayed in the background. The men lined up for roll call in front of the barracks, breakfasted at 6:15 (cereal, a half-pint bottle of milk): 250 soldiers in a vast room, 10 to a table, none talking. Afterward came calisthenics, then close-order marching in formation, 120 steps per minute while gripping the rifle. Extended order drill followed the march: learning to "drop," hitting the rifle b.u.t.t on the ground, then your knees, then your left side. Roll over, and you"re ready to shoot. On some days, the officers required that the enlisted men take a five-mile hike. Lunch, called "dinner," was at 12:30, then more films. The movies were produced by the Army Signal Corps and featured army actors demonstrating training procedures. Occasionally, a B-grade Hollywood actor would show up in one of the films (Don knew every one of these hacks) playing a stern doctor concerned about s.e.xually transmitted diseases. The men would recognize him from the movies screened on base as evening entertainment and whoop with derision.
Bayonet practice followed the training films. At 5:25 p.m., the camp colors were lowered and the men would retreat in formation to their barracks.
They would shower and shave, then meet for supper. After that, they were free to hang out at the PX, go to a movie (for which they had to pay-usually a dumb war drama), write letters, clean their rifles, do their laundry. Lightsout was at nine o"clock. With a pa.s.s, they could catch a bus to a small Greyhound station on Third Street in Leesville and drink in the nearby bars.
On April 6, Don wrote to Joe Maranto, explaining that he had planned to return to Houston on Easter break, but a "lieutenant [or] some other higher animal inspected the barracks and said everything was filthy you could have eaten off the floor actually had you anything to eat but he wore some special gla.s.ses with built-in dirt and the whole outfit was restricted...."
Don went on to say that "Geeters," his nickname for Pat Goeters, had written to him, expressing his disgust with the difficulties of architecture school. "i maintain i could teach him a few things about disgust," Don wrote. He ended: two guys from this company are awol right now and if they don"t start feeding me and letting me have a little sleep say fifteen minutes every other day i might very well join them except for the fact that after this couple of years is up i"ll never join anything again....bardley Like all draftees, Don received several pounds of junk mail at the camp, solicitations from Democratic and Republican fund-raisers (who apparently hoped that a boy"s induction would have sparked a growing political conscience), subscription ads from book clubs, as well as from Time, Life, Look, Time, Life, Look, and other magazines. Since World War I, the military had boasted that soldiers were more bookish than the average American citizen. A former chairman of the War and Navy Department"s Commission on Training Camp Activities wrote, "In the number of books circulated [among recruits], fiction holds the first place. That is natural. A good story helps tide over the unoccupied moments, when the stoutest heart is apt to sink." and other magazines. Since World War I, the military had boasted that soldiers were more bookish than the average American citizen. A former chairman of the War and Navy Department"s Commission on Training Camp Activities wrote, "In the number of books circulated [among recruits], fiction holds the first place. That is natural. A good story helps tide over the unoccupied moments, when the stoutest heart is apt to sink."
Don asked his wife, Maggie, to mail him the latest issues of The New Yorker. The New Yorker.
During the latter half of his training at Camp Polk, he gained slow and rapid-fire skills on the rifle range, experience with "snooping and p.o.o.ping," the soldiers" terms for scouting and patrolling, hiding in the bushes while insects crawled all over him, and dry-run experience, going on maneuvers fully equipped with automatic and semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and machine guns, but without ammunition.
He learned to handle "night problems." He was ordered to practice walking silently in the dark, without smoking or eating, to pitch a pup tent without light, and to stay alert for suspicious sounds. Members of another platoon circled Don"s group, clicking rifle bolts, sneezing, striking matches, and making all sorts of racket to steel everyone"s nerves. Don was supposed to sit quietly, undetected. Suddenly, a flare would fill the sky; the recruits had been trained to flatten themselves or freeze, so the enemy couldn"t see them in the flare light. Anyone who startled was "dead."
On certain "route step marches" during the day, officers told the soldiers they could move in any rhythm they wanted so long as they stayed reasonably together. They could talk and even sing. Don always loved to sing, and he knew a lot of show tunes from the performances he had covered for the Post. Post. On many a long trek, his deep, sonorous voice carried throughout the Kisatchie National Forest. On many a long trek, his deep, sonorous voice carried throughout the Kisatchie National Forest.
Just before lights-out each night, or on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday afternoons when he didn"t have KP duty, he wrote, sitting on his bed, balancing paper on his knees, without benefit of a light. He had to learn to concentrate as several radios droned in the bunks around him.
In June, he finished his basic training. He turned in his rifle and bayonet: an amputation. He returned to Houston for a while; during this hiatus, he spent most of his time explaining to family and friends the various insignia on his uniform-the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and lapel ornaments, the crossed-rifle pin, indicating infantry, the blue piping on his cap, and the regimental colors. He had had to buy the insignia (army regulations), and he purchased an extra as a gift for Maggie, the way frat boys pinned their girls or couples exchanged rings. He gave Maggie a list of the books and magazines he"d need in the coming months. She told him how happy she was in graduate school.
At the end of training, he received no diploma, no mark of completion or achievement, just the certainty that he"d have to do it all again. He had no idea where he"d be shipped. His physical physical location did not match the army"s sense of his place. He was leading alternate lives; though the bureaucratic one lacked immediacy, it controlled his future. location did not match the army"s sense of his place. He was leading alternate lives; though the bureaucratic one lacked immediacy, it controlled his future.
Within a few weeks, he got a.s.signed to Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington, and the cycle started again. In July and August of 1950, the Second Division was the first to embark from the United States for fighting in Korea. It was to this division, as a member of its Second Replacement Company, that Don was a.s.signed.
He found the terrain more amenable than the sweltering Louisiana forests. The temperatures ranged from the low eighties during the days to the forties at night, which made long marches, and sleeping outside, more pleasant, though new arrivals were told to watch for poison ivy. Scotch broom sweetened the air. Ivy and sumac rioted over low-rolling hills. The barracks buildings, two-story wooden structures painted white, with dark green trim, seemed more solid than their Southern counterparts, less weathered and bug-eaten.
Don had plenty of time to write and read. Fighting in Korea ebbed and flowed during June and July, and the military"s plans kept changing. For now, Don"s division stayed put. Kim Il Sung, the North Korean leader, and Syngman Rhee, the right-wing U.S. ally who controlled South Korea, jockeyed for advantage while conducting armistice talks. One day, North Korea (shaken by the recent death of Stalin) appeared to agree to the United States" terms; the next, Rhee had forced all non-Korean prisoners of war into hard labor or into service in the South Korean army, angering the Chinese, who had hoped to extradite their former POWs.
One day, the war appeared to be ending; the next, the conflict flared again.
In his free time, Don learned about America"s nuclear West: the Hanford Reach, with its growing atomic research; the tricity area of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick, Washington, where the army employed much of the local population to work at Hanford or at nearby weapons storage bunkers, underground facilities in the high desert. Don"s short story "Game" (1965) would draw on this knowledge.
Finally, in mid-July, he was sent on what he called the "grand cruise" across the Pacific, precise destination still unknown. On the troopship, he must have been mindful of Hemingway"s war reporting, the battle pa.s.sages in A Farewell to Arms A Farewell to Arms and and For Whom the Bell Tolls. For Whom the Bell Tolls. "You could write for a week and not give everyone credit for what he did on [the] front," Hemingway had written about D day. "The beach had been defended as stubbornly and intelligently as any troops could defend it." "You could write for a week and not give everyone credit for what he did on [the] front," Hemingway had written about D day. "The beach had been defended as stubbornly and intelligently as any troops could defend it."
Don hoped to record similar heroics, but it wasn"t to be. He soon realized that Korea was not like Papa"s wars.
11.
THE THIRTY-EIGHTH PARALLEL.
I"ve crossed...the Pacific twice, on troopships....You stand out there, at the rail, at dusk, and the sea is limitless, water in every direction, never-ending, you think water forever, water forever, the movement of the ship seems slow but also seems inexorable, you feel you will be moving this way forever, the Pacific is about seventy million square miles, about one-third of the earth"s surface, the ship might be making twenty knots, I"m eating oranges because that"s all I can keep down, twelve days of it with young soldiers all around, half of them seasick- the movement of the ship seems slow but also seems inexorable, you feel you will be moving this way forever, the Pacific is about seventy million square miles, about one-third of the earth"s surface, the ship might be making twenty knots, I"m eating oranges because that"s all I can keep down, twelve days of it with young soldiers all around, half of them seasick-
This pa.s.sage from Paradise Paradise amplifies a scene from "See the Moon?": "[I sailed] over the pearly Pacific in a great vessel decorated with oranges. A trail of orange peel on the plangent surface." amplifies a scene from "See the Moon?": "[I sailed] over the pearly Pacific in a great vessel decorated with oranges. A trail of orange peel on the plangent surface."
The woozy troops thought they would dock first in j.a.pan and wait to be a.s.signed, but they were shipped straight to Korea, arriving the day the truce was signed, July 27, 1953. The war"s official end left the troops in limbo. Don"s outfit was reshuffled to Sasebo, j.a.pan, where the soldiers set up a tent city. They were ordered to paint latrines at Pusan. While on shift there as perimeter guard, Don got his first sustained look at the "grimy hills of Korea."
Finally, on a Sunday in late August, traveling on what he called a "toy train," he and his fellows arrived at Second Division headquarters in the Chorwon Valley, just north of the thirty-eighth parallel. "Walking down the road wearing green clothes," he writes in "See the Moon?" "Korea green and black and silent....I had a carbine to carry....We whitewashedrocks to enhance our area....Mine the whitest rocks."
For a while, the army considered sending Don to bakers school; this struck him as hilarious, given how hungry and helpless he had been in the kitchen on Leek Street. He insisted to his superiors that his "weapon was a typewriter"; tenacious and persuasive, he eventually landed a spot in the division"s Public Information Office. Only eight men out of twenty thousand were so a.s.signed. Most of the time, he wrote news releases and articles for the division"s publication, the Indianhead. Indianhead. Once, while on a.s.signment in Tokyo, he saw the names of Buck Pvt. Harold Ross and Sgt. Alexander Woollcott on the masthead of a 1918 Paris edition of the army"s newspaper, Once, while on a.s.signment in Tokyo, he saw the names of Buck Pvt. Harold Ross and Sgt. Alexander Woollcott on the masthead of a 1918 Paris edition of the army"s newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Stars and Stripes. Like these Like these New Yorker New Yorker icons, he hoped to get some bylines in the paper, and he almost did, but time ran out on his tour: one more missed opportunity that made icons, he hoped to get some bylines in the paper, and he almost did, but time ran out on his tour: one more missed opportunity that made his his war a pale copy of Papa"s-not that he ached to see action, and he certainly didn"t want to remain in the service any longer than he had to. But as another Korea veteran, the writer James Brady, suggests, it"s a "sour" feeling to put in your time and then be forced to admit, "It ain"t much but it"s the only war we got." war a pale copy of Papa"s-not that he ached to see action, and he certainly didn"t want to remain in the service any longer than he had to. But as another Korea veteran, the writer James Brady, suggests, it"s a "sour" feeling to put in your time and then be forced to admit, "It ain"t much but it"s the only war we got."
Three years before Don arrived in-country, W. H. Lawrence of The New York Times The New York Times wrote of the enthusiastic greeting U.S. troops received at Pusan Harbor, with schoolchildren "waving Korean, American, and United Nations flags, lined up...singing the Korean national anthem." GIs snapped pictures and gave the kids candy. Pusan itself, Lawrence said, consisted of "thatched shack after shack amid dirt and squalor which would make any pineboard shack in the Hoovervilles of 1932 look like the Waldorf-Astoria." But by the summer of 1953, even the shacks were gone. Don"s outfit saw very few civilians; they"d been routed from their land and evacuated to the south, out of the battle zone. Only the grimy hills remained, punctured with sh.e.l.l craters. wrote of the enthusiastic greeting U.S. troops received at Pusan Harbor, with schoolchildren "waving Korean, American, and United Nations flags, lined up...singing the Korean national anthem." GIs snapped pictures and gave the kids candy. Pusan itself, Lawrence said, consisted of "thatched shack after shack amid dirt and squalor which would make any pineboard shack in the Hoovervilles of 1932 look like the Waldorf-Astoria." But by the summer of 1953, even the shacks were gone. Don"s outfit saw very few civilians; they"d been routed from their land and evacuated to the south, out of the battle zone. Only the grimy hills remained, punctured with sh.e.l.l craters.
The historian Callum A. MacDonald wrote: At 10:00 p.m. on 27 July [1953] a sullen silence fell over the front. The opposing armies disengaged and fell back on their main defense lines behind the DMZ. The outposts in No Man"s Land were left "deserted and quiet except for the rats." There was little rejoicing. For the first time in its modern history, the U.S. had failed to win. [Things] had ended in a draw...[the] "sour little war" was finally over.
Nevertheless, dangers remained in this once-fertile wasteland. Don and his fellow newcomers were warned to watch for land mines. On the narrow road that twisted out of the harbor to Pusan, heavy American vehicles hauling weapons and equipment kicked up dust and caused traffic snarls; daredevil drivers swerved swiftly around one another on the edges of twelvefoot embankments, provoking accidents. The weather was harsh, diseases easy to catch. The soldiers heard rumors that Korean dust was full of parasites that fed infections. And of course no one knew if the truce would continue to hold.
Second Division headquarters sat in a bare valley, near the bombed-out town of Chorwon, bounded by distant red-soil hills. Soldiers named the area"s American outposts "T-Bone," "Alligator Jaw," "Spud," "Little Gibraltar," "Norti," "Old Baldy," and "Pork Chop."
Don and his coworkers in the Public Information Office pulled light duty. They worked from seven to five, making reveille in "an offhand way." They suffered no inspections, no guard duty. Their showers spit hot water, and they kept cases of warm Asahi beer in the office. A Korean houseboy washed their clothes, cleaned their rifles, and heated water so they could shave in the mornings. The army employed several young Koreans-the kids called themselves "Number One Boys"-to carry and organize equipment. The soldiers referred to them, collectively, as the "gook train."
For all the comparative ease of the a.s.signment, Don was "not, of course, deliriously happy," he wrote Joe Maranto. "[F]eel that everything is going to pot, can"t write worth a d.a.m.n (tho well enough to show these people)." He said, "we run into a lot of stories...that we can"t write [for the Indianhead Indianhead]-had half-a-dozen of EM [enlisted men] attempting to blow off their officers" heads in the last month. Despite sunny pictures being painted in Stateside publications, morale is lousy. In indoctrination cla.s.ses they"re asking us to report anybody who b.i.t.c.hes about the army or expresses a desire to go home....Remember [Orwell"s] 1984."
Don"s fellows in the PIO included a "Master from Columbia and a Master from Wisconsin, the latter with a degree in drama," he said. "[A]lso a Southern Cal type and a Kansas U. type, and one from Minnesota and one from Pitt. We"re getting a new one from CCNY this morning; he"s a lawyer and looks to be pretty much of a bomb." For the first time in his life, outside his father"s house, Don wasn"t the best-educated person in his group. He felt this deficiency keenly, and wrote his family for books, books, and more books: Dylan Thomas, Ezra Pound, Saul Bellow. He asked his wife to send, along with The New Yorker, The New Yorker, the the Partisan Review Partisan Review and and Theatre Arts. Theatre Arts.
In October, he wrote to Maranto that a television crew from Seoul "comes up here to the front and films things if we do the scripts. Needless to say, this is marvelous experience." He was looking forward to a Thanksgiving party at a nearby Dutch compound: "[A] whole gang of bigwigs are flying in from the Netherlands and there is a promise of much liquor."
Francis Cardinal Spellman "choppered in on Christmas day to say ma.s.s," Don wrote. Later, someone pa.s.sed around a couple bottles of "vin terrible from somewhere, and the Thais chipped in with a bottle of Mekhong, a whiskey that is peculiarly their own and tastes remotely like anti-freeze. Not that antifreeze of whatever kind isn"t welcome at the moment-it"s been snowing (I had a WHITE CHRISTMAS!)." In fact, the temperature hovered around nine degrees.
Don informed Maranto that he had begun "pedagogging two nights a week" at an army education center: "English (on a very elementary level), about 15 students, $1.25 an hour. One of my students is an aged Negro M/Sgt. who hasn"t been inside a cla.s.sroom since 1930 and 5." This was Don"s first teaching experience.
The army had not prepared or properly equipped its troops to face the killing cold of Korea"s valley winters. By January, temperatures shot to sixty below zero. The sh.e.l.l holes filled with ice. A hard, frozen coat encased the area"s remaining spruce and pine trees and the untidy concertina-wire fences on the headquarters" perimeter. Don slept in his uniform, keeping handy his web belt and canteen. Beside his bunk, an oil stove reeked poisonously, but it kept him relatively warm at night. During the day, soldiers sat on logs or sooty sandbags, shivering inside wet ponchos, crumbling cocoa cakes into boiling water. Sometimes they peed on their rifles to unfreeze them. Otherwise, they used ammo tubes as urinals in the snow. Deep fog drifted off the Sea of j.a.pan and seeped into the folds of their clothes.
Stilled by the punishing weather, and with no imminent threat of combat, the men grew bored, lazy, careless. It was easy to make a mistake with the equipment, to trip over something-a jerrican full of water, a sleeping bag-and sustain a serious injury. The men shaved several times a day, just to have something to do.
The sun began to sink around 2:30 every afternoon, and a fierce Siberian wind tumbled over the hills. The soldiers waited for the gook train to bring them their mail, then retreated to their tents to clean their rifles, count their grenades, and hunch over lukewarm suppers of lima beans and chewy ham. Food arrived from the army"s rear flanks by way of jeep trailers; it came in insulated thermal containers, but nearly always, the last men served found their meals frozen solid.
By 4:30, the light was gone. In the dark, the lonely tinkling of the tin cans with which the men had decorated the concertina wire made everyone feel a few degrees colder. Heading out to the latrine, you had to make sure your toilet paper wasn"t a block of ice.
Sometime in December or January, Don wrote his father that he had taken R and R in Seoul. There, he had seen From Here to Eternity. From Here to Eternity. Though the filmmakers "emasculated half the characters," the movie "nevertheless had some wonderful moments." Don went on to describe a "multi-million luxury hotel S. Rhee is building in Seoul with American gold." Don had met one of the architects. He "is not really an architect at all but an artist who used to design sets for the "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" TV show and is a PFC belonging to our 9th Regiment." The "main architect is equally not a real architect but some kind of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d designer who went to MIT and parades around in Seoul looking weirdly out of place in Ivy League uniform." Together, these men were building a "14-story Babel in which the interiors are all very chi-chi in...what they fondly believe to be the modern manner. They are being very arty about the whole thing and that"s quite a trick because it"s almost impossible to be arty in Seoul since the city is all bombedout ruins and poverty." Though the filmmakers "emasculated half the characters," the movie "nevertheless had some wonderful moments." Don went on to describe a "multi-million luxury hotel S. Rhee is building in Seoul with American gold." Don had met one of the architects. He "is not really an architect at all but an artist who used to design sets for the "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" TV show and is a PFC belonging to our 9th Regiment." The "main architect is equally not a real architect but some kind of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d designer who went to MIT and parades around in Seoul looking weirdly out of place in Ivy League uniform." Together, these men were building a "14-story Babel in which the interiors are all very chi-chi in...what they fondly believe to be the modern manner. They are being very arty about the whole thing and that"s quite a trick because it"s almost impossible to be arty in Seoul since the city is all bombedout ruins and poverty."
The letter shows an attempt to connect with his father, and reveals Don"s aesthetic development. He saw that it didn"t make sense for an architect, standing among ruins, to insist on the "modern manner." It was a case of ego over need, of forcing the wrong design. wrong design.
In March 1954, Don described for Joe Maranto Marilyn Monroe"s trip to entertain the troops: "Just before the show I was backstage and the door to her dressing room was open...we watched her warming up for the show, complete with b.u.mps & grinds and wiggles in tune to the music being played on the stage, and she was winking & blinking at us and smiling a more or less girlish smile and in fine giving the d.a.m.nedest pre-show show you"ve ever seen."
His letters mention few friendships with other soldiers, but he did become close to a young man name Sutchai Thangpew, from the Royal Thai Battalion, a group of around one thousand elite soldiers attached to the American division. The battalion was famous for its bayonet skills. Thangpew, a lieutenant, was engaged to a woman in Bangkok. Like Don, he was a talented writer; he had been a.s.signed to record his battalion"s history. Someday he hoped to become prime minister of Thailand, and Don believed he would succeed. Thangpew was tall and handsome, gentle and intelligent, with a kindly smile. Don once traveled with him to Tokyo, where they visited the national theater, and saw a ballet and a Kabuki show. Later, when Thangpew married, Don sent him a wedding gift. For years afterward, Don scanned the newspapers for word of his friend"s rise in politics, but he never saw anything about him.
Increasingly, Don felt left out of the lives of his Houston friends. Maranto sent Don some of the book reviews he had written. Don replied, "To pay your...reviews the highest compliment of which I am capable, they remind me of me. There is a certain intensity, plus a reaching for the word that is not merely the mot juste but also has a cl.u.s.ter of overtones; in fine, they are very, very good. As is my custom, I say not that they seem seem good to me, but flatly that they are good." Despite his confident tone, he must have felt that Maranto was pa.s.sing him by. Now and then he admitted in his letters that he wasn"t pleased with his own writing. good to me, but flatly that they are good." Despite his confident tone, he must have felt that Maranto was pa.s.sing him by. Now and then he admitted in his letters that he wasn"t pleased with his own writing.
He grumbled about the paucity of "good music" in Korea, though "strangely enough the most consistent source of good serious music our Zenith can pick up is Radio Moscow, which sometimes gives us Tschaikowsky [sic], sometimes propaganda in English." In another letter to Maranto, he mentioned that he had heard from Pat Goeters. "Goeters is still writing the obscurantist prose he was writing when I left. I am pervertedly happy that such things remain constant." Maybe he wouldn"t be entirely entirely at sea when he got back home. at sea when he got back home.
Like dust in the hills around the Chorwon Valley, Korea sprinkles Don"s fiction, in stories such as "See the Moon?" and "Visitors" and "Overnight to Many Distant Cities." The most extended mention of his tour appears in "Thailand," collected in Sixty Stories Sixty Stories in 1981. Here, Don splits himself into two personalities, one a droning old veteran recounting his service in the "Krian war," the other an impatient young man ready to "consign" the vet "to history." It"s as though, in his late forties (when he wrote the piece) Don had accepted the fall from Papa"s perch: There are no Hemingway hero tales, just a boring old man and his cliched reminiscences. His memories are of no use to a new generation-or so the story"s in 1981. Here, Don splits himself into two personalities, one a droning old veteran recounting his service in the "Krian war," the other an impatient young man ready to "consign" the vet "to history." It"s as though, in his late forties (when he wrote the piece) Don had accepted the fall from Papa"s perch: There are no Hemingway hero tales, just a boring old man and his cliched reminiscences. His memories are of no use to a new generation-or so the story"s form form suggests. In fact, the vet"s recollections are anything suggests. In fact, the vet"s recollections are anything but but dull, and come, nearly whole cloth, from Don"s prowls along the thirty-eighth parallel: dull, and come, nearly whole cloth, from Don"s prowls along the thirty-eighth parallel: ... there was this Thai second john who was a personal friend of mine, named Sutchai. Tall fellow, thin, he was an exception to the rule. We were right tight, even went on R & R together, you"re too young to know what that is, it"s Rest and Recreation where you zip off to Tokyo and sample the delights of that city for a week....This time I"m talking about...we were on the side of a hill, they held this hill which sort of anch.o.r.ed the MLR-that"s Main Line of Resistance-at that point, pretty good-sized hill I forget what the designation was, and it was a feast day, some Thai feast, a big holiday, and the skies were sunny, sunny. They had set out thirty-seven washtubs full of curry I never saw anything like it. Thirty-seven washtubs full of curry and a different curry in every one. They even had eel curry....It was a golden revel....Beef curry, chicken curry, the delicate Thai worm curry, all your various fish curries and vegetable curries...toward evening they were firing off tracer bursts from the quad-fifities to make fireworks and it was just festive, very festive. They had fighting with wooden swords at which the Thais excel, it"s like a ballet dance, and the whole battalion was putting away the Mekhong and beer pretty good....
As the veteran talks, his bored young listener tells himself, "I cannot believe I am sitting here listening to this demento carry on about eel curry." Finally, the young man thinks, " I am sitting here listening to this demento carry on about eel curry." Finally, the young man thinks, "Requiescat in pace" (a play on Montresor"s words at the end of Edgar Allan Poe"s "The Cask of Amontillado"). "I close, forever, the book [on you]."
"Thailand" shows that Don never closed the book on his past. Still, he refused to address his experiences directly directly-after all, his father had taught him that if you reveal too much of yourself, you"ll be open to ridicule. In "Thailand," Don preempted any censure he might get for writing a straightforward narrative (what could be more familiar than a war story war story?). Nevertheless, the young man"s impatience with old-fashioned stories makes him appear shallow, and the narrator, a veteran of a much more varied world than his companion has known, enjoys the last laugh: "They don"t really have worm curry....I just made that up to fool you."
When spring came, with its rains, the roads in the Chorwon Valley became deep red swamps; on hikes, the men sank to their ankles in mud. The Number One Boys stayed busy sc.r.a.ping and shining the GIs" boots. The soldiers would fill their rucksacks with peaches, sugar, coffee, pork and beans, and toilet paper, then walk into the hills, amazed at how much light the stars cast. As the weather warmed, fat flies gathered around mess kits and p.i.s.s tubes. As the men sat reading-letters, manuals, Mickey Spillane novels-they swatted at their ears.
For his twenty-third birthday, Don asked Marilyn to send him Erich Auerbach"s Mimesis. Mimesis Mimesis. Mimesis examines several major works-the authors ranging from Homer to Proust-and argues that a writer"s grammar, syntax, and diction can"t help but absorb the "style of the age." Auerbach claimed that Dante"s vernacular, a combination of lyricism, historicism, science, and philosophy, led to the realism of Balzac and Flaubert. examines several major works-the authors ranging from Homer to Proust-and argues that a writer"s grammar, syntax, and diction can"t help but absorb the "style of the age." Auerbach claimed that Dante"s vernacular, a combination of lyricism, historicism, science, and philosophy, led to the realism of Balzac and Flaubert.
Don also requested Suzanne Langer"s Philosophy in a New Key, Philosophy in a New Key, a study of semantics and symbols. He was particularly keen on Langer"s notion that words loosed from their familiar contexts or meanings (as in the poetry of Mallarme) retain their roots. A whiff of past a.s.sociations clings to language, even when it is put to odd new uses. a study of semantics and symbols. He was particularly keen on Langer"s notion that words loosed from their familiar contexts or meanings (as in the poetry of Mallarme) retain their roots. A whiff of past a.s.sociations clings to language, even when it is put to odd new uses.
Marilyn"s enthusiasm for her French cla.s.ses encouraged Don to read French poetry and to try to pick up some idioms, while stationed in Korea.
He read novels by Gide and Stendhal, Faulkner, Huxley, and Moravia. He read Shakespeare and a study of Socrates. He wrote his mother that he had found Truman Capote"s The Gra.s.s Harp The Gra.s.s Harp "wanting Capote"s earlier magic." He devoured Eisenstein on film and Lionel Trilling on the liberal imagination, Max Beerbohm on the theater and Edmund Wilson on the novel. He admitted in a letter to Joe Maranto that he felt a "mammoth inferiority thing" from having a poor education. "wanting Capote"s earlier magic." He devoured Eisenstein on film and Lionel Trilling on the liberal imagination, Max Beerbohm on the theater and Edmund Wilson on the novel. He admitted in a letter to Joe Maranto that he felt a "mammoth inferiority thing" from having a poor education.
A pair of photos taken by fellow soldiers-one in the Second Division camp, the other in a Tokyo garden-shows Don to be comfortable with himself in spite of his unhappiness. He is tall and rangy, relaxed in his uniform, grinning in front of the "grimy hills" or deadpanning next to a fake stork in a fountain. His letters make it clear, though, that he was impatient, biding his time until he could get back home. "Perhaps the army has given me something," he wrote to Maranto, "but if it has I don"t know what it is, except that it has kept me earthy and close to the soil all right...
"But...is that a virtue?"