The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself: Difference between revisions
APKnight25 (talk | contribs) m Fixed spacing in {{sfn}} |
APKnight25 (talk | contribs) Attempting to fix Harv and Sfn no-target errors. |
||
| Line 46: | Line 46: | ||
No one knows whether Leach’s letter interrupted Hemingway’s actual writing or merely his preliminary thinking about his next book. Although Hemingway establishes on the first page of ''Death in the Afternoon'' that this so-conceived “bullfighting book” will be as much about writing and authorship as bullfighting (the analogy is thoroughly developed throughout | No one knows whether Leach’s letter interrupted Hemingway’s actual writing or merely his preliminary thinking about his next book. Although Hemingway establishes on the first page of ''Death in the Afternoon'' that this so-conceived “bullfighting book” will be as much about writing and authorship as bullfighting (the analogy is thoroughly developed throughout | ||
the book, hinging on the similarities in the economic, institutional and cultural mechanisms by which any art form is produced for a paying public), the first several chapters merely introduce the milieu, the spectacle, and its value to the writer, who tries in the night to remember which amongst thousands of details results in a feeling—for it is by strict focus on and adherence to such details, the narrator believes, a writer can convey real feeling and avoid cheap tricks and sentiment. The detail is the contrast between a gored matador’s thighbone and his dirty underwear. {{sfn|Leech| | the book, hinging on the similarities in the economic, institutional and cultural mechanisms by which any art form is produced for a paying public), the first several chapters merely introduce the milieu, the spectacle, and its value to the writer, who tries in the night to remember which amongst thousands of details results in a feeling—for it is by strict focus on and adherence to such details, the narrator believes, a writer can convey real feeling and avoid cheap tricks and sentiment. The detail is the contrast between a gored matador’s thighbone and his dirty underwear. {{sfn|Leech|1930|p=20}} Mailer would approve. | ||
For the first six chapters, ''Death in the Afternoon'' promises to unfold as the observations of a writer (the narrative “I”) engaging with the culture, history, form, and presentation of the Spanish bullfight and, by extension, the character of the Spanish nation and people. Even had Hemingway not delivered something far more difficult, problematic, and admittedly obscure, | For the first six chapters, ''Death in the Afternoon'' promises to unfold as the observations of a writer (the narrative “I”) engaging with the culture, history, form, and presentation of the Spanish bullfight and, by extension, the character of the Spanish nation and people. Even had Hemingway not delivered something far more difficult, problematic, and admittedly obscure, | ||
| Line 71: | Line 71: | ||
''Death in the Afternoon’s'' nine Author/Old Lady dialogues function as a kind of Greek chorus, as each provides a space for reflection on the nonfiction bullfighting discussion that precedes it. These sections each describe a specific kind of danger to which both art and artist are susceptible within capitalist production; by content and structure these sections echo, with minimal fanfare, the nine circles of Hell from Dante’s ''Inferno''. | ''Death in the Afternoon’s'' nine Author/Old Lady dialogues function as a kind of Greek chorus, as each provides a space for reflection on the nonfiction bullfighting discussion that precedes it. These sections each describe a specific kind of danger to which both art and artist are susceptible within capitalist production; by content and structure these sections echo, with minimal fanfare, the nine circles of Hell from Dante’s ''Inferno''. | ||
The fanfare is minimal but literal. The entrance of the Old Lady and the descent into hell are heralded by a trumpeter at the end of Chapter 6: “[T]he trumpet sounds and the very serious, white-haired, wide old man, his name is Gabriel, in a sort of burlesque bullfighter’s suit . . . unlocks the door of the toril and pulling heavily on it runs backward to expose the low passageway." {{sfn|Hemingway|1932| p=61-2}} In the next chapters, Hemingway will literally burlesque the Armageddon wrought on art by the capitalist system of production, performing his erudition (in what he will reveal as a direct response to Huxley) by alluding to several dramatic forms and specific dramatic texts, including the morality play (one more burlesque than apostrophic), tragedy, and Romeo and Juliet (specifically the line “He jests at scars who never felt a wound”). His purpose, although never more overt than the passing reference to Gabriel and the Café Fornos (from forno, Italian for “Hell”), {{sfn|Hemingway |1932|p=105}} is to illustrate that authorship (as opposed to writing) is a burlesque performance, a low-comedy, symptomatic of a system of decay and putrefaction. He invites the careful reader to compare his Author to Dante’s Virgil (addressed as “guide,” “Master,” and “Author” {{sfn|Dante|1994|p=1.85}}) and to thus perceive the analogy and its scathing commentary on the degradation wrought on art and artist by the mechanisms of popular consumption. {{efn|The specifics of how, why, and to what effect Hemingway constructs this allegory are presented in full in Justice, “A Pilgrim’s Progress into Hell: Death in the Afternoon and the Problem of Authorship” in The Bones of the Others, 92–118.}} | The fanfare is minimal but literal. The entrance of the Old Lady and the descent into hell are heralded by a trumpeter at the end of Chapter 6: “[T]he trumpet sounds and the very serious, white-haired, wide old man, his name is Gabriel, in a sort of burlesque bullfighter’s suit . . . unlocks the door of the toril and pulling heavily on it runs backward to expose the low passageway." {{sfn|Hemingway|1932| p=61-2}} In the next chapters, Hemingway will literally burlesque the Armageddon wrought on art by the capitalist system of production, performing his erudition (in what he will reveal as a direct response to Huxley) by alluding to several dramatic forms and specific dramatic texts, including the morality play (one more burlesque than apostrophic), tragedy, and Romeo and Juliet (specifically the line “He jests at scars who never felt a wound”). His purpose, although never more overt than the passing reference to Gabriel and the Café Fornos (from forno, Italian for “Hell”), {{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=105}} is to illustrate that authorship (as opposed to writing) is a burlesque performance, a low-comedy, symptomatic of a system of decay and putrefaction. He invites the careful reader to compare his Author to Dante’s Virgil (addressed as “guide,” “Master,” and “Author” {{sfn|Dante|1994|p=1.85}}) and to thus perceive the analogy and its scathing commentary on the degradation wrought on art and artist by the mechanisms of popular consumption. {{efn|The specifics of how, why, and to what effect Hemingway constructs this allegory are presented in full in Justice, “A Pilgrim’s Progress into Hell: Death in the Afternoon and the Problem of Authorship” in The Bones of the Others, 92–118.}} | ||
Although Hemingway lifts the structure of his dialogues from Dante, the specific sins do not map exactly. Most of Hemingway’s “sins” correspond directly to those described in Inferno’s circles, but he orders them differently as required by his own analysis. Once past the “Limbo” of the uncommitted (Chapters 1–6), the narrator states that, “At this point it is necessary that you | Although Hemingway lifts the structure of his dialogues from Dante, the specific sins do not map exactly. Most of Hemingway’s “sins” correspond directly to those described in Inferno’s circles, but he orders them differently as required by his own analysis. Once past the “Limbo” of the uncommitted (Chapters 1–6), the narrator states that, “At this point it is necessary that you | ||
| Line 110: | Line 110: | ||
{{pg|266|267}} | {{pg|266|267}} | ||
also added a set of advertisements, printed in italics.” {{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} In the next sentence, Mailer states that “[l]ike many another literary fraud, the writer has been known on occasion to read the Preface of a book instead of the book."{{sfn| Mailer|1959|p=7}} The distinction is subtle and probably instinctive; the role of the author involves production and requires awareness of his reader, whereas the writer is here presented as private consumer. That authorship is a fraught space is evident in Mailer’s ironic comment that he “will take the ''dangerous'' step of listing what I believe are the best pieces . . .” [emphasis added]. {{sfn|Mailer|1959| p=7}} | also added a set of advertisements, printed in italics.” {{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} In the next sentence, Mailer states that “[l]ike many another literary fraud, the writer has been known on occasion to read the Preface of a book instead of the book."{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} The distinction is subtle and probably instinctive; the role of the author involves production and requires awareness of his reader, whereas the writer is here presented as private consumer. That authorship is a fraught space is evident in Mailer’s ironic comment that he “will take the ''dangerous'' step of listing what I believe are the best pieces . . .” [emphasis added]. {{sfn|Mailer|1959| p=7}} | ||
Mailer then addresses the book’s structure with an explanation of his decision to provide two Tables of Contents, one chronological, provided for “anyone wishing to read my book from beginning to end,” and a second, organized by genre, “to satisfy the specialist.” {{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} That he considers formal decisions authorial, as opposed to writerly, is implicit in his overt conscious awareness of audience. It is thus not exceptional that a book concerned primarily with authorship reflects that concern in its structural form, and it therefore follows that its fractured structure reflects the shifting, multiple, and sometimes contradictory roles played by one man who is writer, author, authority (if only on himself), and celebrity. Further, as Mailer assigns interest in genre to “the specialist” (to whom he “offers” the second table of contents), his thinking implicitly extends alienation throughout other capitalistic roles—the “specialist,” or professional reader, will necessarily be always/already alienated from the text by virtue of its implication in their own labor. Mailer the professional writer thus extends a token of solidarity to the professional reader—that token being an acknowledgment that professionals must not relinquish awareness of hierarchies and protocols in the performance of their work, even when that work brings in a supposedly private space of consumption. Mailer’s conceptual thinking analogizes thus: | Mailer then addresses the book’s structure with an explanation of his decision to provide two Tables of Contents, one chronological, provided for “anyone wishing to read my book from beginning to end,” and a second, organized by genre, “to satisfy the specialist.” {{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} That he considers formal decisions authorial, as opposed to writerly, is implicit in his overt conscious awareness of audience. It is thus not exceptional that a book concerned primarily with authorship reflects that concern in its structural form, and it therefore follows that its fractured structure reflects the shifting, multiple, and sometimes contradictory roles played by one man who is writer, author, authority (if only on himself), and celebrity. Further, as Mailer assigns interest in genre to “the specialist” (to whom he “offers” the second table of contents), his thinking implicitly extends alienation throughout other capitalistic roles—the “specialist,” or professional reader, will necessarily be always/already alienated from the text by virtue of its implication in their own labor. Mailer the professional writer thus extends a token of solidarity to the professional reader—that token being an acknowledgment that professionals must not relinquish awareness of hierarchies and protocols in the performance of their work, even when that work brings in a supposedly private space of consumption. Mailer’s conceptual thinking analogizes thus: | ||
| Line 204: | Line 204: | ||
{{cite letter |last= Leach|first= Henry Goddard |date= 2 May 1930|title= Letters to Hemingway|location= Boston, John F. Kennedy Library|publisher= TS. Hemingway Collection|pages= |ref=harv }} | {{cite letter |last= Leach|first= Henry Goddard |date= 2 May 1930|title= Letters to Hemingway|location= Boston, John F. Kennedy Library|publisher= TS. Hemingway Collection|pages= |ref=harv }} | ||
{{cite book |last= Mailer|first= Norman|date= 1959|title= | {{cite book |last= Mailer|first= Norman|date= 1959|title= Advertisements for Myself|location= New York|publisher= G.P. Putnam's Sons|ref=harv}} | ||
{{cite book |last= Mailer|first= Norman|date= 2003|title= The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing|location= New York|publisher= Random House|ref=harv }} | {{cite book |last= Mailer|first= Norman|date= 2003|title= The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing|location= New York|publisher= Random House|ref=harv }} | ||